Merry Boxing Day

I spent Christmas in the best possible way – sitting in the shade of a tree reading, and eating raspberries (you Northern Hemisphere-types might get all the pretty of a white Christmas, but it’s tough to compete with fresh raspberries!). We decided as we’d both spent last Christmas away from home in different directions, with different sides of the family, this year would be just for us – a nice quiet time at home with no visitors, no stress, no fuss (we didn’t even make a proper dinner in the end – just snacked all day). And it was wonderful!

Part of the wonderfulness is that I got a new toy! Along with a couple of normal paper-type books, MrPloppy gave me a Kindle! I’d been looking at them for months, but wasn’t sure whether I’d like using one, and couldn’t decide whether to get a Kindle (tied to Amazon) or a Kobo (tied to Whitcoulls), and had pretty much decided I could live without one (but still looked wistfully at them from time to time. So MrPloppy decided to just go ahead and get me one anyway 🙂 It’s just the most basic model, with none of the bells and whistles of the latest versions, but I’ve fallen in love with it already. I’ve downloaded a few books to it from Amazon (and found they even have some for free!), which was incredibly fast and easy (almost dangerously so – I can see it’ll be a temptation to just keep buying books!), and have finished one already. The e-paper screen is incredible – it really is like reading proper print, with none of the eye-strain of reading on a normal screen. And the Kindle itself (now renamed “my magic book device” (my mp3 player already had the title of “my magic story-telling device”)) weighs about the same as a smallish paperback, so it’s not uncomfortable to hold.

I don’t think it will ever completely replace physical books for me (I can’t bookcross e-books, for a start!), but I can see it getting a lot of use. And it’s going to be fantastic for my trip next year – instead of trying to cram enough books in my handluggage for the 30-odd hour flight, I’ll be able to carry as many as I like on my Kindle.

Now I just have to make it a nice cover to keep it safe when it’s in my bag. So, not only a new source of reading material, it’s an excuse for craftiness as well! 🙂

Anyway, hope you all had (or are having – I think it’s still Christmas in a few places yet) a lovely Christmas, and for those in countries civilised enough to have the day off work for Boxing Day, I hope it’s a restful one.