One goes mad in Halifax

Actually, there were two of us. The DSM, living up to his name, came with me as an extra pair of ears. I was doing some heavy duty shopping.

People are always very rude about PC World, but I have to say that the young man who was our salesperson on Friday was very knowledgeable, helpful, polite and personable. And he didn't push me in to making extra purchases that I didn't want.

What I did want - and got - was an iPad. I have been lusting after one of these, well, since they first came out. I could manage fine without one, even though the DSM has almost totally appropriated my netbook, but...you know how it is.

There is at least one practical reason for getting one - I want to move magazine subscriptions to digital before the house runs out of room! Same priciple as the Kindle really - and yes, I have got the Kindle app. Now I need recommendations for knitting, spinning or otherwise fibre-type apps.

I'm doing quite well with the learning curve - I think it helps having had a Touch for a while. But I still have a long way to go before I can get all the very best out of it. The process, however, is such fun.

That's not the end of it. My nice little Samsung digital camera has been getting very flaky recently. Having dropped it on the floor a few times hasn't helped. Plus, having had a digital for a while, I had pretty much worked out the features that I wanted/needed and hadn't got. So we moved on to the camera shop (it's an independent, and very good.)

I ended up with another Samsung at a very good price. The optical zoom is x15, which is a huge improvement on x3, and the shutter lag is greatly better as well. It has a kind of built in macro facility which should be great for textiles. Again, quite a learning curve, especially as even following the minimalist instructions, the camera didn't show/do what the instructions said it would do - but I got there, more or less. I've got it just in time to take on the London jaunt next week.

The other thing we did that day was make a return visit to the people who have the nice wheel that they are trying to rehome (I didn't succumb to that.) I'm making an attempt to find out who the maker was, and would have thought that it would be relatively easy as it has a very distinctive "signature". But no luck so far.





And this is the bit that is most distinctive:



Sorry it's a bit blurry, I've zoomed it. (This was before the new camera!)

Anyone have any clues? The owners thought that it came from somewhere around the Hull area, but Yorkshire Guild contacts have not recognised it so far. And that could just be a family legend, of course.