I don't doubt that you have all been waiting breathlessly, searching your Monday copy of the Argus, to see where I have got to in the great pursuit of computer competence.

I warned you it would be a long haul but even I did not realise how long it would be.

My computer guru spent an inordinate amount of time reorganising my poor Apple Mac and trying to drill into my thick head some of the new skills I would need to join the happy band of e-mailers and internet surfers who were out there in the big wide world.

All of them awaiting the wisdom that I was planning to launch on an unsuspecting public.

We managed at long last to find an internet service provider whose free disc worked, having tried one or two who either were not geared to the Mac - but didn't tell us so before hours of trial and error - or whose much vaunted freebie was already out of date.

I now have a cosy arrangement with BUN who sounds cuddly but can be temperamental if not assiduously nursed.

It is not that BUN does anything wrong, but somehow I manage to keep forgetting one of the steps along the way. Whereas my Mac is never backward in coming forward to call me an idiot when I do something daft, BUN is considerably more restrained and likes to leave me to work it out for myself.

There have been occasions when this would have tried the patience of Sherlock Holmes but I am learning that I have to approach the matter with cold logic, which basically means going back to the beginning and having another crack at getting online.

I always think I have done exactly the same things each time. Obviously I am suffering from bouts of intermittent amnesia since it works the second or third time and on one or two magic occasions - usually when my guru waves his hands around a bit - it has gone right from the beginning. But it all adds to the fun when I get a phone call from a friend who says: "Did you get my e-mail?" and I say: "No, when did you send it?" It all seems to me to negate the need for e-mail since a straight forward phone call would have achieved the same end and with more certainty.

Then I have to start the whole business of looking for the hiding place which always seems to be a different one from the last, but at least it adds to my negative knowledge, if there is such a thing.

But help is at hand. I have just been given a voucher, designed and computer produced by my honorary grandson as a birthday treat giving me two one-to-one lessons from the Grey Surfing specialists, about whom I wrote in my earlier article.

I shall make arrangements shortly to take these up so that I can amaze my guru when he returns from a well- earned break.

And today I flew solo - I managed a real message all on my own and it arrived and so far has not been "returned to sender unable to deliver".

Success at last!