At home in Somerset

No huge headlines here...Just getting me from East Anglia to the opposite side of the country last weekend was a major operation, but a smooth one, owing to the extraordinary effort on the part of my Somerset home exchanger, Carol, who drove all the way out there to pick me up. We spent the night at her sister's house relatively near Heathrow to be in position for her and her partner, Gerry from South Africa, to fly to CLT the next morning. From the airport I drove myself to her house in Somerset in what is called England's West Country. A brilliant plan, really!

Then on the American end, thanks to my Charlotte friends, Carol and Jerry were able to get first to a hotel, get oriented to Charlotte, meet my first set of exchangers briefly before they left, and then settled into my house. Pentagon strategists couldn't have done it better.

Since I had been going at full-tilt for a while, it has been rather nice to slow down and just chill this week. I've been to the cinema in Taunton, about 12 miles away, three times for a movie fix ("Jersey Boys" had me singing out loud, and "Fault in Our Stars" was an excellent tear-jerker), checked out the village pub here in Puriton, grocery-shopped and had my hair cut -- just regular stuff.

One day I did a trial run into Bridgwater, the nearest town, to test the sat-nav. Now, as I've already admitted, when it comes to technology, I'm a few epistles shy of a testament. There's apparently an energy field around me that fouls up anything the slightest bit technological, and heaven knows, I'm simply not wired to understand electronic wizardry. Add satellite navigation systems to the long list of things that make me go AAAACK.

I should first point out that I have my own, somewhat infallible, internal compass. I'm an avid map-reader. I trust maps; they're solid, and they're visual. Show me on a map where I'm supposed to go, and I can usually find it (except, notably, in Oxford, but that's another story). I don't like relinquishing control to a disembodied voice. It's creepy, to tell the truth. But I'm not so cocky that I believe GPS technology can't be useful on occasion.

Of course, the fiends who program sat-navs don't always take into account a system of streets laid out in Medieval times.

And so it was that I faithfully followed the directions oozing out of that blasted device -- and ended up in a one-way alley that dead-ended in a pedestrian mall! No place to turn around, of course. Only option is to back up an entire block and pray no other vehicles hem me in.

Got out of the alley without loss of life or limb and onto a regular street, only to find that the independent book store I was looking for had closed several months ago. The outing wasn't a total loss because a W H Smith, the U.K.'s equivalent to Barnes & Noble, was on the next corner. But I think I'll stick to my own navigational skills from now on.

The theme of Technology Kicks Emily in Her Overly-Generous Butt continued, however, when this very laptop lost its internet reception that night. I may not be very computer-savvy, but like most people these days, I view the computer as my lifeline, especially when I'm away from home. So I was in a pluperfect panic. The next day I hauled it to the pub, which has WiFi, and determined the problem was obviously not in the machine, but rather in the connection here at the house. But what to do now?

Fortunately, my exchanger's niece and her partner, Polly and Rich, came to my aid. They graciously changed their plans the next evening to come over, and within a half-minute, Rich had found the router, reset it, and had me up and running again. How do people KNOW this stuff? OK, I realize it helps that he's a third of my age...

Lest y'all think I'm a total mechanical wash-out (no pun intended), I have figured out how to use Carol's washing machine and dishwasher all by myself. So there! And her shower has hot water all the time. And the microwave is either "off" or "on." It's a sharp contrast to the house in East Anglia, but after a month on the Starship Enterprise, I'm rather grateful for simplicity!