Sunday 8th July; Mums and their Suns

My Mum, in her infinite wisdom has decided, at the age of 72 that she wants to purchase both a Smart phone and a Laptop.  The reasons behind this decision are not many; in fact they are fewer than two.  Her one and only reason for suddenly, at this late stage of her life, is simply so that she can become a member of the Facebook generation.  She has this strange idea that by having either of these two items, wherein she can utilise the internet for the single purpose of subscribing to one Social Network.  Having not ever used a modern computer let alone a Laptop, it is impossible to imagine her using anything more up to date than an old school typewriter.   That is not to say she is unintelligent enough to grasp the concept of modern technology, but a lengthy process of learning would no doubt ensue.
Luckily for me, being at work all day takes me out of the ‘help’ equation.  Unfortunately the same could not be said for my brother.  If she gets her way, he will be left with the unfortunate task of showing her and re-showing her how to navigate through the many facets of social networking.  Let’s put it this way; if her land line was Pay as you go, she’d be out of credit before the Laptop was fully charged!

On the subject of charging, my Mum informs me that her next door neighbours are having solar panels fitted to the roof of their house.  Whilst I commend them for their environmentally friendly attitude it would be nice if they extended some of that friendliness to my parents.  At one time they were very friendly, and then, after one incident involving some tiles and a bit of noise they became quite hostile.  In relation to this current issue, the lady living next door asked my Dad what he thought of vans and trucks parking up outside their house, to which my Dad responded by saying he didn’t like it but put up with it.  From what my Dad has told me this appears to be the end of that conversation, only to discover a few hours later, a truck parking up outside their house containing a whole load of scaffolding poles, destined for the very neighbour who had, not two hours earlier, gauged my Dads response to the question of trucks parking outside his house.

Being the inquisitive kind my Mum had to ask me how the solar panels worked: did you need the sun to be out all the time for them to work? She asked.  I then had the arduous task of explaining (to the best of my knowledge) how the system works; I managed to furnish her with a few analogies but the one that she understood was the principal of a battery being used in a clock for a day, being removed, and then being put back in; the energy that remains only gets used once it is back in the clock, and not while it lay dormant.  I’m no expert but it is almost like explaining rocket science.