91Èȱ¬

I've finally become a home-owner. All the stress of finding somewhere suitable and affordable, exchanging contracts, completing the paper work and shifting all my gear has gone, and I feel jubilant. Now I've got a mortgage, loads of bills to pay each month and the key to my own place, and I feel a lot more grown-up than I did three months ago.

In fact, I'm feeling so good about life at the moment that the only things playing on my mind are that I haven't got Sky installed yet and that I haven't got a power shower to stand under in the mornings. A bathroom fitter came over earlier to tell me how much it was going to cost to install one and I've got an engineer coming to fix up the Sky dish later this week.

I'm so thrilled right now that even though moving is costing me a fortune, I decided to treat myself to a house-warming present. It's a talking GPS device, which uses satellite technology to pinpoint my location as I walk around outside. It hangs over my shoulder and announces what street I'm on, what street I'm walking towards and any significant landmarks I'm near. It cost me over eleven hundred quid, but it's been a revelation to me.

When I moved into my flat, I had a vague idea of where the shops were and that there was a pub around the corner, but I was unsure about how to find the tube station to get to work in the morning. I knew I had to turn left at the end of my road and walk for ten or fifteen minutes, but I didn't know how many roads I needed to cross, what they were called or what landmarks to watch out for. I had been counting on my guide dog instructor to give Bosley and I some training in the area, but when I phoned the association explaining that I was moving house and asked if someone could go over a few local routes with us, I was told: "You'll be lucky! We're short-staffed at the moment, but I'll see what I can do." That was three months ago, and I've not heard a word from them since.

So when I had to find my way home from the tube on the night I moved in, I was a bit nervous about getting lost en route and wandering aimlessly around the streets of east London. I was armed with my GPS device, but it was new to me and I hadn't had to rely on it to negotiate an unfamiliar area. One thing that I was anxious about was that high buildings can block the signal from the satellites in the sky, which can leave you with no spoken feedback about where you are. But looking back on that first day, I don't know why I'd been getting so worried - the device worked fine and Bosley and I strode home with no problems.

There's more to my new gizmo than being a substitute for mobility training from the Guide Dog Association. In the short time I've lived here, the confidence I've gained from using it means that I have no qualms about setting foot anywhere with GPS coverage. For instance, last week I went to a restaurant in the centre of London; I took the tube to Covent Garden, a five-minute walk away, and made my way to the right place thanks to my GPS module.

Before I got hold of this fantastic gadget, I would avoid taking a tube ride to places that I knew were only a few minutes walk away from an underground station - even though I can travel for free on the tube. To spare myself the hassle of finding someone to show me which way to exit the station, tell me what street I was on and which direction I needed to go, I used to pay twenty or thirty quid for a taxi just because I knew I'd get where I wanted without getting flustered and lost.

Like the stress of moving, those days are behind me now. Thanks to my new GPS device, I'm quite happy to ditch cabs and take my chances underground. But I'm not sure if Bosley will share my enthusiasm about the GPS device. From now on he'll be spending less time dozing on the floors of taxis and more time dodging briefcases and buskers and tourists on the tube and in the street. Like Bosley, I reckon that more guide dogs will find their workloads increasing as their owners splash out on GPS devices and cut back on the number of taxis they take.

GPS - it's a wake-up call for guide dogs.