Taking Care of Myself (for a change)

My dear family bought me a Kindle for Christmas. No, dear readers, nothing in this wide world will ever put me off having a real book in my hand or on my shelf. The reason for requesting the Kindle was down to old age and arthritis. Let me explain. Huge heavy books have not, after all, gone out of fashion - despite the recession, green activitists and general accusations of an attention deficit culture - but seem to be on the increase. And I love a huge story where you can really get to know the characters and they stay with you for a long time afterwards. They become part of your existence for a long time, some characters forever. I'm now well into Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy and Lizbet Salander is definitely a never-to-be-forgotten heroine. But that's for another blog.

However, my point is this. Holding up heavy books and trying to keep open the pages is very tiring and painful for my rather arthritic hands. So I felt a Kindle would be the answer for this problem and for reading a large book. Thus my first download has been The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest which is a mega huge book. The actual process of sorting out registering on Wi-fi meant having to find a local venue where I could access wireless and this turned out to be our local MacDonald's in the Malvern retail park. This also meant having to queue amongst an astonishing amount of Boxing Day shoppers after a bargain, fights to find a seat indoors as it was deep snow outside, then wait for a fishburger which was lukewarm by the time it got to our mouths. Still, an interesting experience all in all. We hadn't been to a MacDonald's with Thalia, our daughter, since she was little, and that's some time ago now.

My marvellous daughter set up and registered the Kindle and we then came home, dowloaded (at last) and off I go. I can see it might become addictive. My wrists are certainly grateful.

(This picture included here has nothing to do with anything except the fact that I think it's great. Just bear with me. It's a Christmas Tree of BOOKS!!)