I love the Internet. It has opened doors and windows on the wider world which have completely transformed my life. I love the fact that I can look something up - a fact, a travel route, an author's name, a political speech, and find whatever I want in practically no time at all.
When I was growing up it meant a trip to the library, which was a twenty-minute walk across town. Not that i am decrying libraries. I loved them then and I love them now. But it is wonderful to have all this stuff at my fingertips.
When I plan a holiday now I use the net. I prebook an airport hotel so my first jet-lagged night somewhere is more comfortable. I look up where the Backpackers hostels are for further nights, make lists, print things, find out more about the place I am going. Most cities have down-loadable guides, which usually include some freeby, or reduced price stuff. I never go without looking at those now.
My flights are almost always booked on the net now, too. I can spend a little time comparing prices, can laugh hollowly at some and search for other, cheaper options. It takes time, but if it works right I have myself to thank, and if I get it wrong - well, it's much easier to forgive yourself than others, isn't it?
I bank online, order clothes online, buy books online. I wouldn't dream of buying insurance any other way, and I download all that lovely software that freely allows me to learn more and do more with the net. I send dozens of emails and get scores back. My spam trap always has someone in it trying to get me to give away my hard-earned cash, or to sell me pieces of equipment that, as a woman, I would have no need for. But that's what a spam trap is for - and sometimes, just sometimes, a friend gets caught in it by changing their address - so I have to fish them out and change my records.
I don't think the 20th. Century had a greater technical advance than the Internet. Yes it was pretty good getting to the moon, television was a wonderful advance, but this Internet thing is just the best thing - and it's still developing and will do so as this century unfolds.
I shan't stop going to the library. But I think I will have to stop buying reference books. Why would I need them any more. Let's hear it for the Internet.
Sunday, 30 November 2008
Getting Old(er)
I suppose by many people's counting, I am getting old. I have a free bus-pass which you cannot have until you are more than 60, and I didn't get it this year. But it really is different being 60+ nowadays. When my Grandmother was 60 she astounded everyone by insisting on continuing to play tennis - but she really was the exception. All around her, her contemporaries were sitting down and getting old. By 65, many of the men of her generation were dead - those who hadn't fallen on one of two World Wars, that is. Grandma was a widow for 50 years, and she certainly seemed to be a 'Merry Widow' in the true sense of the phrase. She traveled all over the place, by land, sea and air, and only began to settle after she fell down the stairs of a bus in her early nineties (she was going upstairs for a fag - you could do that then) When, at about 95 her marbles became a bit loose, it was certainly not premature senility- by that age you have earned the right to be senile.
My mother lived to be old, though she was not adventurous like her mother, and she succumbed earlier to senility. Nevertheless, she made it to 96 before shuffling off. I have uncles (well, had) who lived into their nineties, and my paternal grandfather lived to be very old as well.
So I'm not thinking of going yet. With medicine at its highest level of development ever (it's not going to get worse, is it?) I can expect to live well beyond 100. Many more people are doing so. It is nothing exceptional now for men to live into their nineties, and for women to exceed 100.
So I'm going for 120. I am very careful crossing the road, and I don't overdo anything. I gave up smoking over a quarter of a century ago, don't drink to excess and don't have the money (nor the inclination) for drugs.
I do travel a lot, but less and less by air, as it becomes obvious that planes are guzzling more fossil fuels than they are worth. And I have something on my side which other, younger travellers do not. I have plenty of time to take a slow route to somewhere. Last December I travelled to Northern Sweden, above the Arctic Circle, entirely by train. It took over two days and was a wonderful journey, even though some of it was done without the sun coming up at all. I'm going to do a lot more of that in the next few years. I've promised myself.
My mother lived to be old, though she was not adventurous like her mother, and she succumbed earlier to senility. Nevertheless, she made it to 96 before shuffling off. I have uncles (well, had) who lived into their nineties, and my paternal grandfather lived to be very old as well.
So I'm not thinking of going yet. With medicine at its highest level of development ever (it's not going to get worse, is it?) I can expect to live well beyond 100. Many more people are doing so. It is nothing exceptional now for men to live into their nineties, and for women to exceed 100.
So I'm going for 120. I am very careful crossing the road, and I don't overdo anything. I gave up smoking over a quarter of a century ago, don't drink to excess and don't have the money (nor the inclination) for drugs.
I do travel a lot, but less and less by air, as it becomes obvious that planes are guzzling more fossil fuels than they are worth. And I have something on my side which other, younger travellers do not. I have plenty of time to take a slow route to somewhere. Last December I travelled to Northern Sweden, above the Arctic Circle, entirely by train. It took over two days and was a wonderful journey, even though some of it was done without the sun coming up at all. I'm going to do a lot more of that in the next few years. I've promised myself.
Water and Me (3)
Have you ever snorkeled? You should, you know. It is such a calm, pleasant, wonderful activity. It's what swimming is for, especially if you are anywhere near the Great Barrier Reef. You can get a boat which takes you far off the coast and allows you to enter the water via a platform, with steps, so you can enter the water decorously and without fussing the fish.
There below you are the corals; purples, pinks, greens, milky-colours. They are multi-shaped, some like stag horns, some like clouds, some spiky, some smooth. And above, below and between swim thousands of multicoloured fish.
I found Nemo so many times I felt maybe it wasn't him at all, but a school outing entirely comprising his relatives. There were fish of all colours and shapes, enormous frilly mouthed clams, into whose insides you could glimpse, sea anemones of all types. There were little rock sharks - nothing scary, and lots of great big boring-coloured fish, swimming round and round, oblivious to us clumsy swimmers.
The wonder of it to me was how a hundred identical blue fish could follow the same course, all turning this way and that together as though by design. How do they know? But they do - and it gave great pleasure to watch them. I'd waited a long time for this, only ever seeing this on television through someone else's camera, and now, here I was, swimming in the Coral Sea by the Barrier Reef.
If you've never snorkeled you should seriously consider it. You'll never regret it.
There below you are the corals; purples, pinks, greens, milky-colours. They are multi-shaped, some like stag horns, some like clouds, some spiky, some smooth. And above, below and between swim thousands of multicoloured fish.
I found Nemo so many times I felt maybe it wasn't him at all, but a school outing entirely comprising his relatives. There were fish of all colours and shapes, enormous frilly mouthed clams, into whose insides you could glimpse, sea anemones of all types. There were little rock sharks - nothing scary, and lots of great big boring-coloured fish, swimming round and round, oblivious to us clumsy swimmers.
The wonder of it to me was how a hundred identical blue fish could follow the same course, all turning this way and that together as though by design. How do they know? But they do - and it gave great pleasure to watch them. I'd waited a long time for this, only ever seeing this on television through someone else's camera, and now, here I was, swimming in the Coral Sea by the Barrier Reef.
If you've never snorkeled you should seriously consider it. You'll never regret it.
Water and Me (2)
Some years on I found myself again in Australia, this time with my daughter, in Queensland. We had driven from Brisbane to Cairns on the inland road (oh, how wonderful that was - but that's another story) and now we wanted to book white water rafting experience. Perhaps it would be fair to tell you that I am old enough to have my buss-pass. And my daughter is a woman old enough to have children, though she is far too sensible for that! I am a grandmother, however, so that might set the scene for you.
We wandered into an agency that sold 'Experiences'. The woman at the counter was friendly and pleasant and got out a folder containing some choices. We booked a balloon trip and then asked about the whitewater rafting. She explained that there were several grades of rafting, running from 2 (what,no 1?) up to 7 or 8. Looking at me she recommended a 2. I asked whether 2 was the easier end of the scale and she admitted it was.
So we chose a 7. Somewhat stunned, but not wanting to lose custom, the salesperson sold us our tickets and told us where to turn up for the transport the next day. We spent that day bumming around by the water at our hotel and got more excited as the day wore on.
The rafting was high in the rainforest, where, surprisingly enough, it was raining. All the runs were full; there was lots of water. We were fitted with lifejackets and instructed to listen to our individual instructors. The dangers were explained. Then we were allocated to great big orange inflatables and marched down to them.
My fellow raftees looked at me a little askance! They were all even younger than my daughter, and I must have looked to them like their own grans. We cast off (or whatever the term is for starting a rafting trip), and were soon bowling down in the current between rocks and over little falls. I have never had so much fun. We all screamed a lot, were never dry all day, and each time a stop was called (our skipper was the safety bloke) we jumped into the water and played in it.
The very last drop that we negotiated was about twenty feet straight down into a foaming pool. Our skipper told us to get together in the front of the raft and hold tight. This way, he promised, we would not fall out. Though the logic escaped us, we did as we were told. The drop came, we held on in the front and lo and behold - we stayed in the boat. Our skipper told us to watch as the others came. Those who had annoyed their skipper, or who weren't paying attention would fall out of their craft. Sure enough, about half of the crews exited their crafts on the way.
I'll do it again - before I'm 80, I hope. Maybe there are rules for older people - who knows? I'm young yet, and will definitely be having another go. Join me?
We wandered into an agency that sold 'Experiences'. The woman at the counter was friendly and pleasant and got out a folder containing some choices. We booked a balloon trip and then asked about the whitewater rafting. She explained that there were several grades of rafting, running from 2 (what,no 1?) up to 7 or 8. Looking at me she recommended a 2. I asked whether 2 was the easier end of the scale and she admitted it was.
So we chose a 7. Somewhat stunned, but not wanting to lose custom, the salesperson sold us our tickets and told us where to turn up for the transport the next day. We spent that day bumming around by the water at our hotel and got more excited as the day wore on.
The rafting was high in the rainforest, where, surprisingly enough, it was raining. All the runs were full; there was lots of water. We were fitted with lifejackets and instructed to listen to our individual instructors. The dangers were explained. Then we were allocated to great big orange inflatables and marched down to them.
My fellow raftees looked at me a little askance! They were all even younger than my daughter, and I must have looked to them like their own grans. We cast off (or whatever the term is for starting a rafting trip), and were soon bowling down in the current between rocks and over little falls. I have never had so much fun. We all screamed a lot, were never dry all day, and each time a stop was called (our skipper was the safety bloke) we jumped into the water and played in it.
The very last drop that we negotiated was about twenty feet straight down into a foaming pool. Our skipper told us to get together in the front of the raft and hold tight. This way, he promised, we would not fall out. Though the logic escaped us, we did as we were told. The drop came, we held on in the front and lo and behold - we stayed in the boat. Our skipper told us to watch as the others came. Those who had annoyed their skipper, or who weren't paying attention would fall out of their craft. Sure enough, about half of the crews exited their crafts on the way.
I'll do it again - before I'm 80, I hope. Maybe there are rules for older people - who knows? I'm young yet, and will definitely be having another go. Join me?
Water and me(1)
Whenever I walk by the sea I have to walk in it. It doesn't matter how cold it is, how rough the waves are, how stony the pebbles, I have to take off my shoes and get into the water. It can be a genuine pain not to be able to get wet. That's what the sea is for. There's no point at all being by the sea if you cannot get in.
Some years ago I was in Australia, all ready to swim. My friends, Australian nationals, came down to the water's edge with me. It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, yes, it was winter in Australia but have you tried the Solent in summer? There was no-one in the water. All the more for me, I thought.
But no, it was not to be. 'The sea is full of bluebottles' my friends assured me. Bluebottles? Large flies wearing football boots like at home? No - bluebottles are the early stage of the Portuguese Man of War Jellyfish and they sting like - well, they sting. So I wasn't allowed in. There I was, in Oz, with sand and surf and the water and I couldn't go in.
Some years ago I was in Australia, all ready to swim. My friends, Australian nationals, came down to the water's edge with me. It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, yes, it was winter in Australia but have you tried the Solent in summer? There was no-one in the water. All the more for me, I thought.
But no, it was not to be. 'The sea is full of bluebottles' my friends assured me. Bluebottles? Large flies wearing football boots like at home? No - bluebottles are the early stage of the Portuguese Man of War Jellyfish and they sting like - well, they sting. So I wasn't allowed in. There I was, in Oz, with sand and surf and the water and I couldn't go in.
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