The iPad and I: so far, so good...

This week I picked up my  new iPad. Not that I ever had an old iPad - I've just bought one - but instead of calling the latest version the iPad 3, its creators insisted it was simply "the new iPad". I decided to get one because 

         (a) more and more of the books I want to read are appearing in paperback editions that look as if someone has simply taken the original (unaffordable) hardback and shrunk it down, resulting in small thick clumsy books with tiny print;

         (b) I can't see to read unless I'm in a really good light, which isn't always available, especially when travelling (even on the bus). The iPad is lit and you can make the print bigger. Unlike the Kindle, the iPad has a screen big enough to let you do this and still get a reasonable amount of text on the page;

         (c) I thought it would be nice to stay in the warmth downstairs instead of having to go upstairs every time I needed to use the computer. I don't own a laptop, so the iPad seemed like a good idea all round.

         The nice young man in the shop wrote down a list of basic instructions for getting started. You have to sign up to iTunes, which I'd never bothered with before. 

         The first hurdle was getting my iPad to do anything at all. I would turn it on, it would show me the apple, then it would go black. In desperation, I finally resorted to my desktop PC  to find and download the User Manual. It told me about the arrow that flicked up for a moment when I turned the iPad on. You have to slide it across to unlock everything.

         Once I got that far, it was reasonably plain sailing until I got to the part about there being an email from Apple asking me to verify my email. It asked me to put in my Apple ID. But by that time I'd filled in so many boxes and answered so many security questions that i couldn't remember what my Apple ID was. So I clicked on "Forgotten your ID?", and it asked me to input my birthday. I did that, and it told me I was wrong.

         At this point I gave in and phoned the help desk. A very calm woman with an accent that was only slightly difficult to follow (as I'm sure mine was for her) started by asking me for the serial number. Then she told me where it was - on the back of the box. I peered intently at the tiny letters to make them out, eventually she understood what I was telling her, and she got me back on track. She even helped me go back into the maw of the beast and correct my birthday. (I could have lived with it recording the wrong birthday, except that I didn't of course know what wrong birthday it had.) Then the call got cut off.

         I bravely carried on, alone. I knew exactly what I wanted to do first: download the app (see, I can speak iPad!) for Kindle, so I could get ebooks from Amazon. I will still buy real books from real booksellers, but there are some venerable classics available for free. One of these is the first volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time/Remembrance of Things Past, the first thing I wanted to download - I'd decided this was the year to tackle it.

         I didn't quite get that far last night - it took me all my remaining time and energy to get onto the internet and download Kindle before falling into bed, too exhausted to read. (Halfway through I had to phone the help desk again, because although this book was free, they still wanted all my billing details, and I couldn't work out how to type in my phone number in any way that was acceptable to the unseen god of the machine, which insisted on a three-digit area code. A nice young man got me over that hurdle. They train them very well not to laugh). 

         This morning, after a frustrating half hour or so (the manual kept telling me what to go to in Settings, but I couldn't find Settings, so that was no help), I finally managed (I'm not quite sure how, and I probably won't be able to do it again without a lot more futile prodding at the screen and swearing) to get into Amazon and download Swann's Way. And start reading it.

         I still don't have a clue about the iCloud, or how to write (or dictate!) notes and send them to my proper computer,  let alone how to look at my emails (I think it can do that, but I'm not sure). And I was disappointed that the Kindle books seem to stay floating around in Kindle, rather than neatly installing themselves on one of the most reassuring bits of iPad, the nice wooden bookcase (the only thing I have on it so far is the manual). Maybe the only books that go onto it are iBooks? 

         But I've just discovered the Gutenberg Project, with its enormous and fascinating lists of bygone books (including Proust, only in French). And I expect I'll be able to figure out how to do the other things I need or want to do. Eventually. Meanwhile I'm having a good time with Marcel.

There and here

No-show last week because I went to Auckland to see family and friends and some pictures. The Degas to Dali exhibition at the redone Auckland Art Gallery was entirely satisfying, partly because of the outstandingly good text that went with it - it sounded like (and was probably by?) my favourite NZ art expert, Mary Kisler, who told Kim Hill it was the best exhibition she'd worked on. It's on till 10 June.

        And then I saw an ad in the paper for a Frances Hodgkins exhibition at the Jonathan Grant Galleries in Parnell, so we went to that too. It included the rescued 1930s black chalk drawing "The Sitting Room", which had been used as a kitchen cupboard door in a student flat in Canterbury, England, and was thrown into a skip during renovations - read the full story here. There were also a number of works which had belonged to Hodgkins' close friend Jane Saunders (the Hocken LIbrary has a lovely double portrait by Hodgkins of Jane and her partner Hannah Ritchie). For a moment I had a mad impulse to buy one, but of course calmed down and bought the catalogue instead.  You can see all the works, which span 1901 to 1947, at the excellent online site here.

          So what with all this absorbing art, and spending decent lengths of time with friends and family I hadn't seen for a while (including meeting my new great-nephew), and the glorious weather and good food, I had a pretty nice time. For no particular reason, I suddenly lost it on the bus coming back from the airport, but the messages on my answerphone pulled me out of that trough and set me back on my feet again. 

           Now I have two new editing jobs and three book reviews to do, so that will keep me occupied for a while. And tonight I went to see Geraldine Brophy and Jane Keller in the last night of Floral Notes, a wry, moving, stylish piece (they wrote it themselves) about the numerous species to which I belong, but which is still all too rarely seen on the stage - older women. 

Farewell to Watts Hardware

Tonight I went to the farewell, in the local church hall, to John and Anne Watts. John ran Watts Hardware in Marsden Village for thirty-seven and a half years. (I got this photo off Google, so it's not very good.) It was a lovely old-fashioned hardware shop, stocking an astonishing range of things. About ten years ago I wandered in one day and found a beautiful, not-too-big traditional roasting dish, complete with rack. Harvey was very pleased with it and used it a lot for his famous roasts.
      Everyone who served me there was really helpful and kind, endlessly patient with my dim questions about the finer points of paint and sandpaper, handles and glue. The last big thing I bought was a kind of solid rubber wedge, to form the end of the new ramp at our front door. It was quite expensive, but they knew it was for Harvey, and gave us a really good price. But the ramp was finished only a month before he died, so he hardly used it.
       John Watts is getting on, and now he's not in good health, so he's had the big sale and closed down. It feels like the breaking of another link to my past life, both with Harvey and with the kinds of shops and shopkeepers I grew up with in Auckland's Mount Eden. So like everyone else around here, I'm really sad to lose him.

Good Friday

Wellington is enjoying an astonishingly fine autumn. On Monday Ali came round for the garden, and we got an amazing amount done, mainly because of her encouragement, energy, skill and knowledge, but also because the weather was so good that I didn't flag as I usually do. She brought me lemons, new plants, and her latest batch of quince jelly (see "The magic quince").
          But later in the week I did flag quite badly - the aftermath of Rarotonga, I expect, plus the approach of a holiday, always a difficult time, beset by a heightened consciousness of being on my own.. It's hard work, this living alone business, especially if you don't go out to work every day. You have to organise all your company and companionship, all the time - it's no longer just reliably there, ready whenever you need it, without having to actively do anything to get it. And of course, by the time you've been together as long as we had, there's such a generous store of shared experience  and knowledge that you implicitly understand so much, being together is easy. (The danger, of course, is that you take each other for granted and don't fully value what you've got, but something of that is probably inevitable.)
              The other problem (maybe it's just me?) is I can get quite nervous about contacting people to arrange things, especially over holidays, thinking that they're probably all busy already, and maybe a bit weary of hearing from me anyway. Silly, I know, but it's easy to get into a downward spiral about it all.
               Anyway, I managed to rally enough to go out last night and buy myself the new House and Garden (to inspire the major tidy-up I planned for the weekend), a block of peppermint chocolate (in lieu of an Easter egg), and one hot cross bun for this morning (though I am totally non-religious, I irrationally cling to the tradition that Good Friday is the proper day for eating hot cross buns). This afternoon I went for a walk down to Harvey's plaque, and tonight my neighbour is coming in for dinner.
                Not sure about tomorrow yet, but on Sunday my lovely long-distance driving friend is taking me over to the Wairarapa, and on Monday another one is coming to the garden centre - I need some new pot flowers, and maybe some tulip bulbs. Harvey always grew them, and  in the photo are the ones I grew (I was so proud of myself) for his last spring. But I didn't bother last year. So I think it will be good to revive that tradition, too.

A holiday

I really did have a proper holiday in Rarotonga. I'm very grateful to my niece (Harvey's brother is her father) for inviting me to her wedding, otherwise I might never have got round to going there.
        My idea of a really relaxing holiday is to go to a lovely beach, find a good place to sit in the shade, and read a lot, breaking off only to go for paddles and beach walks and small local expeditions to find something to cook for dinner, along with an icecream. That's exactly what I managed to do most of the time, except that once other family members arrived, we went out to dinner instead (see Something Else to Eat) - it was so nice to have a crowd to go with every night, because having dinner alone is the thing I find most difficult when I'm away.

I also loved the fact that there was no need for me to drive anything anywhere. Little buses go round the whole island in 50 minutes, clockwise and anti-clockwise, so you can never get lost.    
       There are proper stops (one was right outside our place), but they also stop if you hail them from the roadside, or tell the driver where you want to get off. Yet they're always pretty much on time. Brilliant.
And of course it was warm. All day, every day, even during the one huge two-hour downpour. After the non-summer we've had here, it was incredibly soothing and relaxing.

The wedding day itself was the most perfect of all - no wind, no clouds, just sun and blue sky. And right on cue, a tropical sunset over the lagoon, the only one we had. I wished so much that Harvey could have been there with me to see it, and toast his niece and her husband as they stood barefoot and beautiful on the beach.

But one marvellous thing happened on the way over. My plane reached Auckland quite late, so I ended up  cutting things a bit fine for my flight to Rarotonga. But I had to stop at the duty-free and buy a special bottle of red wine to take for the wedding dinner. I raced in, found a nice man and asked him to find me a good bottle of pinot noir for X dollars. He went to the shelf, reached one down and said "This is really good". I didn't even look at it - I just thanked him, bought it and ran off. Of course when I arrived panting at Gate 9, I found that the flight was delayed anyway. So I sat down and looked at the bottle. It was from Central Otago, the brand was Soho, and the name of this particular wine was - McQueen.

Thank you

Before I dash off - thanks so much for the three warm, thoughtful, helpful comments on my previous post. I'll think about all this while I'm away, and of course any others will be greatly appreciated too. Here's a picture of Harvey's plaque with three late Dublin Bay roses from the garden - I took them down the road to mark our wedding anniversary this month.

Where to from here?

I've been writing about the experience of losing Harvey and learning to live on my own for a little over a year now. My first post after he died went up on 16 January 2011.

What I need to work out now is, do I go on with this blog in the same way? Or do I broaden the focus a little and use it more as a writer's blog where I try things out?

I don't have to decide right now, and in fact I'll be away again from next week until the end of March (I was lucky with the timing - it perfectly suits a visiting academic couple to look after the house for me). So I won't make any decisions about it until I get back. But I would really appreciate any comments and thoughts you would like to send me about what you want to read here. (Just bear in mind that because comments here are moderated, they may not appear till I get back and put them up.)

Meanwhile, today I went to a book launch in the same local hall where we launched Harvey's last two books, and also had afternoon tea following the private funeral on 31 December 2010. The publisher, Steele Roberts, was the same one that had brought out Harvey's anthology, These I Have Loved, in October 2010. In his speech today, Roger Steele moved me greatly by recalling that occasion and paying a gracious tribute to Harvey. Thank you so much, Roger. It felt like a kind of gentle closing of a circle.

Anniversaries

I missed posting here last week because I was feeling too low, in that awful state where everything seems completely pointless. I think it was partly the aftermath of being ill, and partly the fact that my wedding anniversary was coming up and I wasn't sure how I would cope with it. The frightful "summer" didn't help eiither - this week it was officially confirmed that Wellington has had the least sunshine and fewest warm days on record.
      But dear Ali came round last Thursday and that made a big difference. Then on Friday I was whisked in to TVNZ's Wellington studios to appear on Close Up, talking about adoption. And fortunately, weeks ago I'd organised a long late lunch for 3 March, as a belated 50th anniversary present for friends (see Golden). I produced a five course lunch and thoroughly enjoyed myself  (I'll put a post up about it later this week over on Something Else to Eat).

I knew I'd probably feel rather flat when everyone went home, so I arranged to go round to my neighbour's and watch a DVD. As my contribution, I took round delicious leftover bits of the last course (strawberries, slices of chocolate salami, and a few stray truffles), plus the dessert wine, and that all went down very well indeed. All these goings-on seem to have turned the tide, and I've felt much better since.