No iBooks were harmed in the making of this blog

26 October 2006

Yesterday I was summoned to John’s house (about an hour from here) to have my hand filmed. A three-year-old boy had already been filmed playing with a toy van, but now a specific closeup was needed – and grownup sisters with small hands are much easier to direct than toddlers.

While I waited for John to edit and check what he had shot, I used Dad’s iBook and did some translation work. We ended up staying at John’s all day and I began to see the advantage of being able to carry my work around with me on a laptop. My iMac may only be five weeks old, but all of a sudden I find myself considering buying a MacBook too.

John summoned us again today. This time Mum and Dad ran errands for him, collecting cameras and returning equipment while I burned DVDs and designed disc labels. Although I was busier than yesterday, there were still quiet periods when I was able to do some of my own work on a laptop again.

I began to translate this interview from German and then finished it off in truly mobile fashion in the car as we drove along the dark motorway. There was, of course, no wireless internet connection to be found on the M25 (it’s only a matter of time, I’m sure) and so I simply marked the (surprisingly few) words I couldn’t translate without a dictionary in order to finish it off at home.

As we finally turned into our road, various internet hotspots started registering on Dad’s iBook and I found that our own connection is available from the road outside our house. Just for fun I emailed my work to myself while I was still sitting in the car. That way it would be waiting for me on my computer when I got inside.

Feeling pretty pleased with myself and at one with the technological world, I opened the car door. As I started to get out, with the iBook in my arms, my bag tied itself around my ankle. I tripped, falling face first into the beech hedge and emerged with scratches on my forehead and a cut lip. It seems that pride does indeed come before a fall.