Long absence

Sorry to anyone who has been following the drivel I write here.  I've just been so busy since Christmas that I haven't written anything here, but lots has been happening.
Santa brought me an iPad - lovely.

I discovered just why everyone is raving about Steig Larson's - don't know about the spelling there - Millenium Trilogy, and I've read the lot and seen one film.  They are definitely not the kind of books I normally read, but I found them riveting, and read them one after another.  They are so good that I imagine I will read them again sometime.

I also found out that it is poss. to download books from the local library on to the ipad - got the Millenium Trilogy that way.  Here in the UK they do not let you do this on to the Kindle, which is a shame as the Kindle is lighter and easier on the eye than a backlit screen.  Also the great boon of the Kindle is the battery life - the ipad cannot come anywhere near to competing with this.

However the ipad has apps galore.  I downloaded a really useful one recently called Slideshark.  It is great for giving talks when you need to show slides or short videos.  You can use it with Powerpoint presentations too.  So I didn't need to lug the vintage laptop along when I did a talk recently.

The bumblebees around here have been having a hard time with the weather.  We had an amazingly warm March, with temperatures over 20, then a foot of snow overnight and below zero.  So one afternoon it was over 20 and that very night we had a blizzard and woke up to frozen ponds and dead tomatoes in the greenhouse.  Luckily for the bumblebee queens that have survived - and there are many - the good weather made the fruit trees bloom early, so there is a lot of nectar and pollen around.

Also read a hilarious book by Dawn French called A Little bit Marvellous.  It is a very light book, and can be read in one sitting, but it is a really great way to pass what would otherwise be a few dull hours.  There are 2 very different teenagers in the book, and she has got them down to a T.  I am so glad I don't have to go through those agonies again.  When I look back on those years I was so influenced by fashion and fads, and what my peers thought of me.  I did and wore things that I really didn't like, but just went along with the herd.  I wish I'd had the strength of character to stick to what I liked.  Oh well, I suppose this is one of the few benefits of growing old.