I've just taken an order, nothing unusual about that; except I am on a high speed train in France travelling in excess of 100 miles per hour, and the customer,Carol, was ringing from a mobile in Greece. Then using my Vodafone mobile connect, I enter the order onto our web site on my laptop, it is then instantly picked up by our office in Chipping Sodbury, England and despatched within an hour, while I am still on the train in France and Carol enjoys the sun in Greece.

The wonders of modern technology still stun me sometimes, although I really should be used to it as all my business activities are reliant on modern technology, and me well over 50. Who says old dogs cannot learn new tricks.

The history is: I have designed, manufactured and sold underwear for over thirty years, it is and always been the love of my life. Six years ago I moved to south west France, to escape the rat race. My love of lingerie never left me, and when it was suggested that a web site and mail order brochure aimed at the more mature computer wary sector of the population, it was not difficult with my experience to put together a range.

We set up a British Limited company, registered in England and with distribution, all controlled by me via computer links in rural South West France. I can send and receive enormous files via broadband, which allows me to design the layout of our brochures, produced twice yearly, and send them directly to our printers instantly.

The Mobile Connect is a card inserted into my laptop, allowing instant connection to the internet, enabling me to always be in contact, wherever I am. It still fascinates me travelling down the motorway, not driving of course, working on the live internet, How does that work?

Of course we could not survive without the magnificent broadband, the Mobile Connect card as I mentioned before, and our final ace is Skype, which not only allows me to keep in constant touch with my office in England, completely free, but gives me massive reductions on my calls all over the World.

How far we have come since a mobile looked and felt like a breeze block, and the World was a big place.

Louise May founder of http://www.underthetop.com

Member of http://www.WomenWorking4Women.co.uk