We at Mojacar Magazine get loads of emails from all over the world, some good and some bad but the vast majority of our readers seem to like us.
Occasionally we stumble across and email that really catches our eye for different reasons, the one below is no exception and we decided to share it with you.
Lorraine Writes
Good luck for the future success of your magazine.
I live in Australia and have very good friends who live in Spain and we keep in touch regularly by e-mail .
I owned a flat in Player San Juan many years ago when the coast was just starting to develop.
I love Spain and my son and his family lived for many years in Sitges. It was on a visit to them when I met my friends. Carmel, Maeve, Marie, Jon, and Michael . All of whom are in touch with me by e-mail .
I am eighty three years of age and have had a computer since I was seventy. In those days www was hardly known . I have a story which you might like to publish. It will be of special interest to the retired who are just venturing out into the world of Cyber Space.I am sending it to you for you to read . I am a published writer and have ninety poems waiting to be published. One poem for every magazine might be of interest to you. I really would like to see you make a success of your venture. By the way if you write my name in Google you can read some of my work.
Best wishes,
Lorraine Roxon Harrington
The year is 1998
Like so many people, I have always been interested in any new piece of technology as it became available, and also, like many people, I had accumulated all the electric gadgets that are supposed to make life easier and save time.
There was the blender, a crêpe machine, the sandwich maker, the electric crock pot, the machine to make froth on the coffee, and let’s not forget, the electric can opener which could open five hundred cans in a minute (so it said on the instruction sheet).
Now I ask you, we are just two people, so when would we ever have need to open so many cans at once? I believed at the time all these gadgets would help me to save time and how much easier that would make my life.
It was not long before the electric can opener was shut away in the cupboard with many other ‘Make life easier Gadgets’, and the old hand-operated can opener was dug out from the box in the garage and returned to its rightful place in the kitchen drawer.
Of course, there was the latest Stereo system. I thought about that. We really could do with a Twin Cassette player. We could then tape all those old tapes we never listen to, and give them away to friends.That way, at least we would be able to keep copies of all those tapes we never listen to. What do you say? Shall we buy one?
I was constantly asking my husband these questions as the television and newspapers advertised these great new products.
Now who could resist the latest CD player? The one that plays five CDs at a time. We would be able to have hours of continuous music, and of our choice. Wouldn’t that be really wonderful?
Well we did buy one and it was great - for a while - till I found I was too
busy to change the discs and the same music was heard, over and over again. By this time, we had so many electrical appliances there was no room in the kitchen cupboard for our pots and pans. Cupboards were bulging, and labour saving kitchen devices were in cupboards situated low down.
They were too big to leave on the top of the kitchen bench as they took up too much space in our smaller house, and they were too tall and too heavy to go on to higher shelves. That meant we had to bend down to get them, and lift them up to use them. I was now of an age when all this was too much.
It became easier to use a fork for whisking, and the old-fashioned potato masher taken from the kitchen drawer, which required no effort.
One day, we decided it was time to make a big decision. We had to be ruthless and make more room. Our ‘ Can’t-live-without time-saving-gadgets’ just had to go. We were beginning to discover that we could live very well without most of them. We sold some for next to nothing at a garage sale. Some had stopped working ages ago and had been waiting to be repaired. They were taking up valuable space and were really not worth the cost of repair, so out they went. Back and forth to the tip we went. We tried hard to give away things that were working almost new and in good order .
We were sure they would be gratefully received but, to our surprise no one wanted them. “We had a job to give them away also’ we were told by our friends. ‘Our children only like the latest colour! So they went to