Keep taking the Tablet

I am writing this weeks blog on my new I pad.

It was a surprise Christmas present from Richard and I love it.

It is a gadget that changes your life

Rich has had one for a year now and is attached to it by an invisible umbilical cord.

I feel now that with this I have grown another set of arms and eyes and ears. It really does change your life.

I have just taken it with me on a business trip to Holland. It played a movie to me on the plane. It gave me my book to read at bedtime. It played me music. It allowed me to film the students I was working with and play back the results to them for analysis and feedback.

It allowed me to book airfares for a future job. And of course it allows me to keep in touch - face time phone calls to Rich, Skype phone calls to Mum as well as dealing with all my emails.

Hard to find something it doesn't do and of course it now means we are both sat on the sofa of an evening, ipads to hand ready to look something up, or tweet our thoughts about something. Very futuristic.

2012 does seem to sound like the future. 2011 had a dull ring to it, but 2012 seems sharp and of the moment. I don't know whether it is because we have been hearing of it for the last seven years and it's now finally here, but it does seem to be an important year on so many levels.

According to the Mayan calendar the world ends on 21st December 2012.  That's because that was when their calendar finished. It didn't go any further than that date so hence it would seem to be the end of time.

If that's the case I've got a lot to fit in in the next eleven and a half months.

Starting with our play Green Forms - I won't do the details here (www.greenformsplay.co.uk) but suffice it to say we'd love to see you all there and it is on for five days from 24th January.

I've been in Holland for two days this week to get a good start to the working year. Nothing else now until two days in Paris at the end of the month, but at least those jobs will allow me to pay bills for this month while we do the play. Which is good as it allows my head to just focus on doing a good job on the current project.

Talking of which, Richard found a fab old photo of Janet Ellis and I on line from the very early eighties when we did Jigsaw together which was where we met.

Here we are thirty years down the line working together again.

One problem the iPad can't solve for me is my mother.

After a wonderful Christmas with Richard and his family and myself, and a good start to the New Year, she has got back into her habit of not wanting to get up in the mornings. I can fully understand this on some of the recent days of damp and drizzle that we have had, but if we allow it to become a habit then it's not good for her.

The problem is that the phone calls each morning to find out whether she's up or not have started to debilitate myself. I find myself getting angry, distracted, and unfocused in matters that I have to deal with as my mind is constantly wandering up the M1 to Yorkshire.

Crossroads, the charity who provide the carers that I use, are just brilliant. They provide every help that they can and I know that they are there for me to help deal with what is rapidly becoming a difficult problem.

I broached conversations with my mother regarding sheltered accommodation over the Christmas period and she nodded in her usual dismissive way. She is stubborn, obstinate, and single-minded - all traits that those of you who know me well will have no problem in identifying in myself.

Green forms will take up the month of January, and then these conversations have to be turned into action and it's not something I'm looking forward to. While ever a parent is alive, one is a child. Yet these seem to be very adult decisions and I'm now placed in the position of parenting her. I find it unbelievably hard, difficult, and draining.

If only there was an app for it!