Kate’s Listography for this week challenges us to nominate our five most important gadgets…

 

 

 

 

My Phone

About twenty years ago, Jon who’s now over at The Deliberation Station predicted that there would be a time when none of us would have home telephones any more and that we’d each have our own individual handset that we carried around with us.

That kind of came true, but I use my phone far more for other things than for talking.

I had my bi-annual upgrade a couple of months ago, and I now have a huge slice of my life accessible via my phone – I tweet from there, write evernote blog drafts, take photographs (albeit poor ones at present while I’m still getting to grips with the new system).

I don’t know what I’d do without it, really.

And I do feel strangely honoured to have been one of those people who did once know life without a mobile phone. I think it kind of makes us appreciate them more, although I can’t quite remember how we managed to organise our lives without them.

 

The Pen of the Moment

I don’t do a great deal of handwriting, but I do think that having a lovely pen is a great pleasure.

I change my mind over and over about which I prefer; sometimes, I’ll borrow one from someone else and manage to hold onto it, and sometimes we get promotional samples through the post and there’s a great one there.

I’m on a gel pen at the minute, bought from a lovely little gift shop in Thornton Le Dale that sells all sorts of things that I never see elsewhere.

 

Mike’s Laptop

I’ve been lugging around full-size laptops for as long as I can remember. I’ve normally used them for writing on when I go away, and every time I go anywhere I have the dilemma of whether the extra weight will be worth it.

Almost invariably, they’re more of a burden than a help.

But Mike bought a mini laptop a few months ago; a lightweight thing that doesn’t have a lot of power but lets him draft documents and watch youtube vids in bed.

And when I go away somewhere with work or on a long journey, it’s kind of the deal now that I get to have it with me.

 

Washing Machine

I’ve had various times in my life where I’ve not had a washing machine, either because I’ve not been able to afford one or because I’ve lived somewhere that didn’t have the space or the plumbing.

I know that there’s a certain charm in spending Saturday mornings curled on a wooden bench reading a worthy novel and pretending to be a student again, or in the indulgence of paying a service charge for someone to wash, dry and fold everything.

But the convenience of being able to do a washload whenever I need to takes a lot of beating.

 

George Foreman Griddle Thingy

I had to have something about cooking in here; anything that makes meal prep speedier is a great gadget in my book, and in the end it came down to either this or the microwave.

But for virtue and slimming power, I settled on the George Foreman.

It know that it strips the fat and the fun out of everything it cooks, but it doesn’t half make me feel virtuous.