Sabbatical - Paul Larcombe

For the more technically inclined I thought I'd expain how I have managed to update this journal whilst we've been in Argentina.

I used my PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), which is both a voice phone, data phone and camera phone. The model is an MDA III from T-Mobile, which is about two years old. It runs Windows Pocket PC operating system, whixh includes Pocket Word and Pocket Excel.

The MDA III was connected in Argentina to the Personal network via roaming with T-Mobile. This meant that there was a GPRS data connection pretty well wherever we went, and that it was possible to send email from the phone.

The Windows Live Spaces online journal was updated just by sending an email to a special Spaces address. This included photos as well.

The MDA III has a WiFi connection as well and it was possible to go into most cafés and get a free wireless connection. Both our hotels had free wireless connections, the one in Buenos Aires even had free Wifi in the room. This is in contrast to the UK, where Wifi is usually charged at GPB5 per hour. This meant that it was faster to download emails or browse the internet than with GPRS. The only drawback was that I was unable to send emails from the Wifi connections (SMTP problem), so I had to use GPRS which was charged to my UK T-Mobile monthly contract at GBP7.50 per megabyte. This worked out at about a pound a day, which was more than I'd planned, but worthwhile for the ability to be send updates from anywhere.

Future improvement will be to solve the problem of not being able to send emails from a Wifi connection (I have to use SMTP on the MDA III as the browser can’t support most webmail web sites). There do appear to be some Pocket PC webmail programs, but I may need to change my ISP. I am also experimenting with FTP programs, which will allow uploading of photographs.

Sorry, slipped into Engineer mode there. End of Geek-speak.


Update: I was always aware that the photos taken on my MDA III and stored on its SD storage card were vulnerable since the SD card could not be backed up. The PC's in the internet cafés did not have an SD card reader and I didn't take my USB to SD card reader, which would have allowed me to make a back up. Take a look at this link, which solves the SD card problem by making it dual use and allows you to plug it into a USB socket: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-images/B0009HTB0Y/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_all/104-5667015-0305531?ie=UTF8&s=electronics#gallery Is that cool or what!

Saturday 30th: We arrived safely at Heathrow at 7.15 am and are due to arrive in Peterborough at 11 am. The British Airways flight, which included a touchdown at Sao Paulo, was on-time and without incident.

Mrs Larcombe ordered a vegetarian meal option on the flight - then spent the time wishing she'd had the 'normal' option, which included a chocolate brownie!

Happy New Year

The full extent of Mrs Larcombe's preparations for her return to the UK may never be known. She has been taking full advantage of the fact that it costs about one third of the UK price. Our reporter has managed to detail and photograph some of them:

Tanning - this has been a seven- week process culminating in a dark bronze tan. No doubt Mrs Larcombe will be wearing lots of white clothes in the coming weeks!

Hair styling - the full extent of these cannot be revealed for reasons of national security, but the photograph shows the amount of attention that she is receiving from two Argentinean hairdressers.

Pedicure and manicure - some sort of scrubbing, cleaning, pasting and finally painted nails.

Top lip - done before she knew it or even asked for it.

Eyebrows waxed - we do understand that nothing else was waxed!

Friday 29th December: We're now on the way to the airport. We fly on BA246, which leaves Buenos Aires at 1.15 pm. There is a touchdown in Sao Paulo for an hour.

We arrive at Heathrow Terminal 4 at 7.15 am Saturday. We will then get a train to Peterborough, probably arriving around 11 am to 12 noon.

One of audio books that we brought with us was one by John Grisham, called Skipping Christmas. Grisham recounts the story of a middle-aged couple whose daughter goes off to Peru for a gap year, about a month before Christmas. The husband, an accountant, starts to add up the cost of celebrating Christmas and discovers that he and his wife spend over 6,100 dollars on it each year. Faced with this revelation, and with their only daughter away at Christmas, they book a cruise, beginning on Christmas Day. The story records the fight they have with their neighbours and friends expectations as they opt out of the build up to Christmas. There is, of course, a twist to the story, which I won't reveal so as not to spoil it, but it is an excellent read (or listen - see www.audible.co.uk).

Liz and I both listened to it over the Christmas period. It was a good reflection for us, to really evaluate what Christmas is all about. Being here in Argentina has effectively meant that we skipped Christmas, or at least the UK version of it. The hot temperature itself was strange enough, but so was being absent from family and friends. It made us value those whom we missed, but it has also been good to celebrate Christmas in a completely different culture.

Here's a picture of the people we spent Christmas Day with....