Today has been a bitty day in several ways. We went out twice and those outings were bitty as was the weather which was a mixture of cloudy, sunny and rainy.

This morning we took the laundry to the dry cleaner’s in Amwell Street. There was rather a lot of it. In addition to a stuffed shopping trolley, there was a stuffed pillow case. Tigger took care of the trolley while I carried the pillow case. The only way to carry a stuffed pillow case is to clutch it to your bosom, using both arms, a posture that ruled out taking photos.

After depositing our laundry, we crossed the road to Myddelton’s where we bought coffee to take home, carrying which again ruled out photography.

This afternoon, Tigger needed to go to the bank to sort out a matter and, of course, I went along too.

Rough garden

In Pentonville Road, in front of some offices, is a neglected garden. Somehow, despite the neglect, daffodils have managed to grow and make a fine showing, almost creating a pretend woodland scene.

Tiger, tiger

In the window of a charity shop, we saw this splendid tiger. Just imagine cuddling up to that at night in bed! I felt a little sad that he had been abandoned, perhaps by some child now grown up and casting aside childhood possessions.

Islington High Street

After the bank, which was quite busy, we set off along Islington High Street. By now, as you can see, it had started to rain, which was somewhat of a disincentive to long rambles. Happily, it soon stopped.

The York

As a goal, Tigger proposed buying coffee at Redemption in Islington High Street. On the way, I photographed the fine Victorian pub, The York. As we see it today, it was rebuilt in 1870.

Outside Redemption

Tigger went into the coffee shop to buy the coffee. I could probably gone in as well, given that we are a “bubble” of two, but I thought it easier to wait outside, even if it did make me feel like a dog left outside the supermarket!

The sun came out

While I was waiting, the sun decided to put in an appearance and I thought I should take a photo of it!

The Business Design Centre

We passed by the Business Design Centre, the 1986 front end (now Grade II listed) of the old Royal Agricultural Hall whose other side I have also photographed more than once (for example, see Visiting Musgrave Watson’s sculpture).

Angel Centre, back entrance

While we were in the area, we thought we might as well take a look at the Angel Centre to see what they have been doing to it while the builders’ screens have been hiding it. As we approached via the back entrance, we found a light display of a type that is common enough these days, so no excitement there, then.

More lights

Inside were a few more lights but work is obviously still progressing so I shouldn’t be too critical, I suppose.

What’s this strange contraption?

What, indeed. Much obviously remains to be done before this construct’s nature and purpose reveal themselves.

Courtyard and Angel Wings

Work is still in progress in the open courtyard area so, again, it’s too early to come to any conclusions as to what the finished product will look like.

Chapel Market

We walked through Chapel Market whose market, as I have mentioned before, is closed on Mondays. I still took a photo, though, for what it’s worth.

Baron Street

And here we are, nearly home, in Baron Street. Now that our ramble is over, the weather has changed for the better. That’s how it goes.

As I said, a somewhat bitty day. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

I don’t have particularly large hands and no one ever described my fingers as pudgy. I would class my manual dexterity as good and have never had any difficulty with the more intricate tasks of life. However, there is one field in which I do have difficulty and this is particularly annoying in view of the amount time and energy I devote to it.

In case you haven’t guessed, I will tell you that I am referring to the use of my smartphone’s on-screen keyboard.

Before we changed to iPhones, we had used several Blackberry phones with physical keyboards. Whatever else you may say about Blackberries, their keyboards were, in my opinion, ideal.

Having migrated to an iPhone, I was faced with the problem of trying to type text coherently with an on-screen keyboard and finding it frustratingly difficult. Note that I don’t blame the design of the iPhone and I see other people typing away apparently without difficulty. No, I accept that the problem is in me, that is, in my fingers.

You can imagine my predicament when you read that I write my blog almost exclusively on my iPhone. When I am composing a post, the air is frequently blue with swear words!

It did not take me long to wonder whether using a stylus would prove beneficial. Over the years, I have acquired and used numbers of these. Success, I have to say, has been limited.

I am not very clear as to the technology involved but I know that the iPhone requires what it called a “capacitative stylus”. These typically resemble a small ballpoint pen with a rubbery cushion in place of the nib. The iPhone’s screen is designed to expect contact from something similar to a finger and, therefore, the rubbery cushion on styluses tends to be fairly large – 6 millimetres being the average diameter.

How big are the individual “keys” on the iPhone’s keyboard? Yep, about 5 to 6 mm. You can of course enlarge the keyboard by turning the phone 90 degrees into the “landscape” position but this creates problems of its own.

Given the similar sizes of the “keys” and the stylus nib, it’s not surprising how difficult it is to type a sentence without mistakes from mis-keying and how easy it is to type the wrong character.

The other day, rummaging in a drawer, I found a stylus that I hadn’t used for some time. It was quite small and, I noticed, had an unusually small rubber nib. This proved to be a “light-bulb moment”: what if the narrower point made it easier to hit the right key? And so it proved.

For several days, I used the small stylus exclusively and then tried using one of my usual ones again. Yes, there was no doubt about it: using the narrow stylus I made far fewer mistakes.

The small stylus, though it had served to prove a point, was a little too small for comfort so I looked on the Web, searching for styluses with narrow heads. They turned out to be somewhat elusive.

There are expensive ones with a disc on the point and there are equally expensive ones that are described as “active”, which means that they need to be electrically charged before use. Styluses with ordinary rubber, but narrow, nibs are few and far between.

New stylus

I finally found one that seemed to fill the bill. It is in the photo above. It has a rubber nib at both ends, a conventional 6mm one and a smaller one. I estimate the area of this smaller nib that actually touches the screen to be about 3mm – just the sort of thing I was looking for.

Being as long as the average ballpoint pen, this stylus is easier to handle that the tiny one I was using. I have used it to write this post.

Verdict? I still make mistakes and the surrounding air still sometimes takes on a cerulean hue but the mistakes are fewer and I can say that the new stylus has proved to be a success. I will buy some more because I like to leave one in the bedroom and carry another one with me in my handbag.

It amuses me to think of Babylonian scribes using a stylus to impress cuneiform characters onto clay tablets and myself, thousands of years later, also using a stylus, albeit with a rubber tip, performing very much the same actions, but “impressing” characters via an electronic keyboard!