1) Open box
2) Plug in Airport Express
3) Connect cable
4) Open wireless connection on Mildred
5) Surf net. Wirelessly. Without it crashing all the bloody time. Did I mention the wireless feature? And the remoteness?
6) It works. Effortlessly. 5 minutes from postman delivering it to online. And most of that was opening the box without slitting my fingers off with the knife.



I shall leave to others the experience of rebuilding their computers every week...

Life is full of small pleasures and victories.

For example, managing at last to track down the source of the never-ending supply of fruit flies in the utility room: a bag of Jerusalem artichokes left to fester for several months (without a smell, it would seem) behind the laundry basket.

I'm sitting in a friends' guest bed blogging, keyed into their wireless network, marvelling at the sheer technology that makes such a thing possible from anywhere at all in their house. No need to crouch in the corridor, or creep to the best corner of the bedroom every time ones needs the internet. No, no, here you just click and go.

I had to take our useless heap of cr@p of a wireless router back to the shop last week, and was actually very glad to see it go. It had developed narcolepsy of epic proportions, requiring rebooting as often as several times a minute. It may be that this is some anti-obesity feature now required by law, but it got so annoying that wireless router just had to go.

So, I am 150 miles away and three hours' drive from home without husband or children, which frankly is rather weird. Yesterday, I was getting pathetic palpitations just thinking about leaving them for two days, although I frequently dream of nothing else than several days away from the school run-meal preparation-activity taxi grind, interspersed by frantic periods of work and animal husbandry. I wonder if they're all still alive...

This was, I think, my friend's idea when she organised this girly weekend at her house for our bunch of university friends. Due to work and life commitments, some of us have not met for some years. It should be fun to catch up with them.

(I must remember to tell you about the many baby creatures we have gained in the last two weeks.)

I feel guilty- I have been neglecting The Pen most dretfully.

I am very busy, with work and roof gully mending (what it is about working as a builder that turns the most independent of men into a two-year old?) and more baby creatures than we can shake a stick at (and believe me, it doesn't work, so don't bother...)

Of which more anon.

I was just wondering yesterday why we were all so tired (and grumpy in some people's case), until I checked the calendar and realised that we hadn't had a single quiet day at home as a family since March 23rd.

That would be it then.

And there was me worrying about January being busy...

If this April summer is the result of global warming, then bring on global warming, say I. It's been like California all month here (20-24C in the daytime, and sunny), and looks likely to carry on. It just makes my heart sing, weather like this.