“I suddenly woke with a shock to realise I am totally disabled in terms of managing modern life”.

To give you further insight, I thought I’d tell you about a situation I have found myself in recently.

I have always dined out on and soaked up the laughter of being inept – the ‘I can’t even open a packet of crisps’ attitude to life.  Add to this, my ‘ology’ in delegation (something I clearly inherited from my Victorian father) and the fact that I am married to a guy who likes to be a knight in shining armour and is very practical with it.

Technology has largely passed me by.  I’m not exactly sure when or why but it was probably sailing past 70 years and losing three good friends last year, when I suddenly woke with a shock to realise I am totally disabled in terms of managing modern life and if anything happened to Bob I would be, in a word: stuffed.

In spite of Bob getting the hump and taking it personally about my quest for autonomy, I am now on the way to becoming ‘ept’. The laptop came first, then the smart phone and my latest achievement – a real face-to-face appointment with a real bank manager to set me up and teach me how to do internet banking safely in these fraud-invested times.

This has been no easy journey as I have no terms of reference and it all seems (to me) to be completely nonsensical techno-speak.  A world apart from the world I have inhabited for the past 70 or so years.  And, although I do learn and some mud does gradually stick, I can find myself falling into ignorance-induced deeper-and-deeper holes from which I am unable to climb.  I guess age and mileage don’t help – but nor does the fact that my husband has developed his own way of doing things over the years, which I really can’t make any sense of and which inevitably escalates into a domestic.

So, for me, when I started out on this road, I quickly realised I needed professional help and our friendly and very humorous (essential) computer repair guy arrived to give me my first – and subsequent, add-on lessons.  My daughter has also come to the rescue and taught me how to use things like texts, WhatsApp and Zoom – I am well on the way to eptitude.

This is a long and winding road which will probably continue as long as I do, but I can now admit I love being able to run my own affairs at the touch of a button – and I do believe Bob has now (on a good day!) more or less got the point of what I am trying to achieve. We are still married!

So, that’s it, really – now share your own journeys – go on, come and join us – and let’s help others.