Apple & The Mysterious Technology of Sheds

A while ago in the days before Apple Stores, I visited an Apple Centre and got talking to a technician. He reliably informed me, though I'm sure it wasn't company policy, that the Apple Mac was the 21st century garden shed, a place where "Blokes go to get a bit of piece and quiet... and do their own thing alone, or with their mates." (As in other blokes!)

The analogy seemed apt, although I think the Mac is an egalitarian kind of machine, (if you can afford it). The metaphor has stuck with me. The Mac is a place I go to tinker about, mess with settings, root through forgotten stuff and primarily in my case be creative. It also has music, video, photos and a grand view out onto the world.

The shed's also the thing for writers these days - or the garden office - but this is where for me the Mac analogy begins to break down. Or does it?

I have taken my MacBook in the van, up and down the country, abroad, to a hotel room, but I have failed dismally to write anything on it while I've been away from my desk in my small (and untidy) study upstairs.  I can take the Mac and all that stuff with me, but when I'm away it no longer has the familiarity of the shed. It's a mystery. It's like borrowing a beach hut. No sooner are you in, than you want to be out.

The Mac is a shed, but it has to be in my garden just where I want it. There are working rituals around its use. I need to know exactly where it is and visit it the same time each day. Move a shed and it'll lose a little bit of magic.

Sheds aren't easily transported. Nor is my creative space. Maybe, I just lack the discipline to work in a caravan.