I have this love-hate relationship with technology. When, for whatever reason (too frequently operator error in my case) it doesn’t work, that’s when the hate part applies. It stands between me and the things I want to do. My drone is one of the more complicated bits of technology I have. It flies well, gets a fine picture from the GoPro I have attached, and sends live video back so I can see just what I’m shooting.  Sometimes though, something will go wrong and I’m left holding the thing, staring at it in frustration as it blinks back at me, frequently taking photos of me in said state, just to vex me further.

When it goes properly though it opens a door to possibility, letting me see stuff from angles I otherwise couldn’t. Not without some expense and hassle anyway.

Today my friend Alan Preston from Bedpost asked if I could send the bird up close to his building, just to see if anything odd was happening around the facade.  He’s just a few hundred metres from me so it was an easy favour to grant. Wouldn’t you know it though, I hand’t used it for a while and had forgotten I’d put all the batteries into storage mode. First attempt it got up but kept flashing the lights that say “I’m not confident of completing this mission with this amount of charge on board”.

OK. Quick charge and a couple of hours later we’re in the air, getting photos that are way less than spectacular, but enough to tell Alan there’s nothing much to worry about up there, apart from one spot which may be where the bedpost owl chooses to crap on a regular basis.

Perhaps not as exciting as abseiling down the facade for a look, but safer than a ladder. And way cheaper than a scissor lift or scaffold.

Technology, love it when it works.