iPad and Bank Holiday Weekend
Strangford Lough
It’s funny how, even with the best of intentions, things never quite work out the way you expected. I must say, it’s not always a bad thing.
Friday morning, 8am, the Apple Store in Victoria Square, Belfast opened its doors to unveil the new iPad. Queues of people waited, (not quite patiently), in the ‘purchase queue’ outside to get their hands on the new Apple gadget. All I wanted was a look.
I walked in, picked one up, and everything changed. iNeed…
So, I left, went to work and got on with the rest of my weekend. Sunday came, however, and I just had to go and buy one. It just made sense. Web browsing, emails, video, games, all sorts of apps for all sorts of things and on a device that feels like the part of your body that’s been missing this whole time – Why wouldn’t I buy one.
The journey from Friday’s initial iPad experience to Sundays purchase was an ironic one. A weekend away from anything that had a plug. Mobile phone signal and 3G coverage were only available if you managed to locate that square inch of ground in the middle of the field where you hold your phone high above your head until you see the little bar at the bottom flicker to life. Then when you bring your phone back down to a usable height – gone!
I spend the weekend with a friend of Aisleaghs in Strangford. We took the kids out horse riding, we played in the garden, set up a swing ball set and listened to the tale of Fantastic Mr. Fox each night before bed. Bliss!
I never grew up in the country; this has been very new to me this past number of years. It’s amazing just how dark it gets at night; the sound of ‘real’ silence is ecstasy. Going to bed before 11pm and actually being ready to sleep was an odd feeling. No computer to keep me occupied, no phone signal at all, just the great outdoors and a couple of kids that don’t have the ability to sit still for more than 3 minutes. It was a great weekend.
Maybe I was supposed to rediscover life without such extravagances as an iPad and iPhone 3Gs but I’d say that the weekend of the iPad launch is not the best time to teach any tech-head a life lesson.
I do love a weekend in the country, and dare I say it, it probably does me good to be away from things for a while. Like ‘they’ say, “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
Live, Love and Die Happy
Craig
