A new toy

Thursday November 15, 2007

To IKEA in Bristol today, starting off along the Bristol Road for those with good memories. Graham had a list of bits and pieces he needs for the main part of the house doctoring project.

It was a smooth run, with no more than the usual anxiety over the poorly signposted turn-off from the M5 Northbound onto the M4 Eastbound, successfully navigated with the able help of Graham looking out for lane changes and signposts.

At IKEA, nothing much had changed and everything had changed, including the breakfast. It’s now a 99p deal, with only the one variant. Delicious, as always, and the portion control and balance has, I suspect, been carefully designed to reduce the calories and bad fats to safer levels. We all have to follow the path towards sensible diets these days; it’s now the way of IKEA.

My legs held out quite well as we paced around the store, doing the grand tour to make sure we didn’t miss anything from the new catalogue.  Graham loaded a cart and then a flat-bed trolley with items from his list, cursing just a little when he discovered that they’d got their stock control wrong again and two minor items he’d wanted were nowhere to be found.

No problem.  He did a quick, in-flight redesign of my new study in his head and adjusted his pick-list accordingly. Clever, huh?

Once the car was loaded up we decided to opt for a coffee and a sit-down before hitting the road home. Then, feeling bouncy still, we made a tiny detour into the close-by Tesco’s for lunch and dinner makings.

“Come and look at this,” he said as we entered the great maw of the Tesco’s retail experience.

“Ah.  That’s a dirty trick,” I said as I beheld a large display of satellite GPS navigation systems.

And so it was. I’ve been researching in-car sat-nav systems for a couple of weeks now, wanting to have a little extra help for the long-distance trips I’m probably going to need to take in the New Year, without the aid of my able navigator who will be stopping home to look after Dolly.

“Isn’t this the one you’d settled on?” he asked, all innocent-like.

“Yup. That’s the one. The TOMTOM ONE XL.  Everyone says it’s the best buy.”

“Well, grab it now. I haven’t seen a better price on it anywhere.”

“But I only wanted sandwiches.”

“We’ll not forget ‘em. Grab it now while it’s hot. And then we can get the new Harry Potter DVD cheap, too. They have them on special offer.”

Well, what can you do? I slapped my plastic on the counter and concluded the deal there and then.

My new toy

So soon as we were on the motorway, Graham had the new toy out of its box and plugged into the power outlet on the dash.

Beep, it went. And again, Beep.

“Well, it’s doing something,” he said.

After a short amount of fiddling, more to do with learning how to use the controls–there aren’t any, really, and they’re all touch-screen things–Graham stopped trying to be clever and settled down to work in idiot mode, which worked splendidly.

“Good heavens,” he said as the device grabbed four or five overhead GPS satellites. “It knows where we are. It knows exactly where we are. We’re just passing under a bridge.”

“You could have known that by looking out of the window.”

“Hee hee. Where shall I tell it to take us?”

“Well, home, of course.”

The device wasn’t fixed in its proper place yet, so I couldn’t see much, needing to concentrate on the driving, but now and again I could glimpse a moving map on the 4.5″ colour screen, and I was greatly amused as Graham called out the names of towns and villages as we passed them. Places that were previously no more than a church steeple across the fields have names at last!

And then, startling us both just a little bit, a pleasant female voice–name of ‘Jane’, so I understand–broke into the conversation.

“In 300 yards, exit the motorway for Bridgwater.”

And then: “Exit the motorway now.”

Then she went on to direct us through the increasingly maze-like warren of urban roads and brought us right to our door, announcing finally that we had reached our destination.

We sat there in the car, dumbfounded.

“That’s very impressive,” Graham said.

“Darn right it is. Do you remember the trouble we had when we came to view the house?”

So that’s it. I’ve moved another few faltering steps along the technological trail. The new toy will be a life-saver when I go off on my own, looking at houses in Borsetshire [that's a made-up name].  Quite apart from the difficult cross-country route, all I need when I get there is the post code of the house I’m to visit and then the lovely Jane will direct me by the fastest possible route.

And, when we’re there, it has a ‘walking’ mode which may be used to explore the new territory.

Now the question is, what do I do with all those old road-maps?