The dilemma of what to take on holiday to write with

 Of course there’s an obvious answer…paper and pen! Except I couldn’t then be bothered to type it all up when I got home. (I know me!)

Which when you consider I love notebooks, is weird, maybe? But my notebooks have bits of stories in. Prompts and bullet points. Which as my handwriting is getting worse, (arthritis is a pain in more ways than one) have to be brief. So the thought of putting a whole book down in one of them is a big no no.

It has to be laptop or tablet. 

Usually, any holiday sees me with a tote bag over one shoulder, my carry on and a big suitcase. Cables, notebooks and of course, e-reader, laptop and tablet. Which is a pain at security as I have to haul them out.

I decided I needed to try leaving the laptop at home and writing on my tablet. I’ve got one with the ability to write all I want, so. I decided to give it a go.

The dilemma was should I take a keyboard or not?

The first break I left home, feeling I’d forgotten something.

Ah, ha, my laptop. Safely tucked away.

I can manage I thought, after all I had my keyboard, so wrote I could.

Except I didn’t.

It was a faff to sort the keyboard out every time I wanted to use it, and remember to switch it off when I’d finished. So half the time I didn’t bother. And writing on my tablet with a different keyboard to my laptop was (and is) frustrating. I keep hitting the wrong keys and getting silly words. Which if I don’t see immediately, I then have to try and fathom out. Yes, silly things I know but it all added up to very little writing getting done. And as often on holiday I would usually get up early to write, I found that just didn’t happen.

So recently when we had a couple of weeks in the Lanzarote, I swithered. Laptop or not?

It was only a couple of weeks. I could use my tablet, surely? And not take the keyboard.

So that’s what I did.

I sat near a palm tree. Got out my tablet…

Oh dear, too sunny. Better try later.

Oh what a lovely sunset. Can’t see properly to write.

Indoors and oh, there’s a puzzle I want to do.

The writing just didn’t get much of a look in. Which is my fault, no one else’s. But it is frustrating not to be able just to open laptop, open the doc and get stuck in.

So, I might just have to accept I’m going to have to unload half a tote bag at security, or not get much writing done, if we go away anytime soon.

It shouldn’t be such a big thing. I didn’t think it would be, but…

And now, after a lot of puzzling, I think, just think I might have a sort of a solution.

I was watching a video on my tablet the other day and I had a sort of a brainwave. Why not write landscape and have bigger keys? Okay, the area of type I can see is miniscule and I can’t actually see the last thing I wrote without scrolling. But I had a go! 

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So the next holiday, it will be notebooks for notes with a big memo from me…

Turn the tablet sideways!

Happy reading,

Love Raven xxx

Ps to prove I could do it, I decided to write this on my tablet, and for the life of me I have no idea why the size of type keeps changing and I can’t sort it, it just glares at me every time I try. Sorry

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