Dear LPG,

I have recently become one of those who travel quite a bit by train on a regular basis.  Every week I spend about one and a half hours making the journey to the east Kent coast of England and the return journey takes the same amount of time.  The experience reminds me of the daily journey that I used to have to make in order to get to work in central London, before I retired at the beginning of this century, although I no longer have to stand all the way while hanging onto a bar or post in the train. 

Because I now travel out of the rush hour and have a comfortable seat, the journey is a much more relaxed experience and at first I would content myself with observing the view from the window.  I spent some time taking photos, but the view does not change, and I got a bit bored with that pastime.  I am not much of a reader and soon found that the magazines and newspapers that I bought were wasted too. 

I began to find myself dozing during the journey through boredom, and it occurred to me that because I travel alone, I could risk missing my stop or losing my belongings if I continue to do that.  It was then that my son reminded me of the tablet that he bought me the previous Christmas, and that I had not even made any real attempt to get to grips with.

I think that because I found myself with time on my hands and nothing else to do, I have learned how to make use of the tablet which has a screen big enough to look at in spite of the train’s movement but is small enough and light enough to put in my bag and carry around. 

If you are not a reader and prefer films, there are ways of having them available to watch during your journey and I also spend quite a lot of time using Google to find things out.   With a mobile internet agreement and my earphones, it is like being in a world of my own and the time passes so much faster… 

 FI, Lee.