Toytown

I've just been helped by 'Editor Bob' to sort out the mess I had initially made in becoming a member of Toytown Germany, a website and forum for English speaking people living in Germany. I've been doing a lot of exploring of forums and chat rooms in the past months - not least to try and let more people know about my family book. I very much enjoy visits to Dublin.ie and to Rootschat.com. What I found with both of those was that older people are finding a way to use the internet to connect and I think that's wonderful.

Indeed, having WLAN at home has connected me to another part of times gone by: radio. I check in regularly for old comedy programmes on part of the BBC website. A favourite delight of mine is to sit out on our balcony on a warm summer night with headphones plugged in so I can listen to classic programmes like 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue'. Another wonderful link to the past is the fact that sites provide out-of-copyright books to download. I found Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, and Nikola Tesla's autobiography - and even a charming book about bees that I referred to a friend.

I know there are plenty of racy and funky chat rooms out there. I know there are downloads of software and who knows what. There's even Second Life - to which my reaction after trying it out for a while was the quote from the teeshirt 'get a first life'.

But the web is for us oldies too.....