Jonny McCambridge: Embracing a bright new future in how I park my car and send email

I have an appointment this morning and am anxious about getting there on time. As I continue my journey through the city streets, my concerns about the pace of traffic are replaced by those of finding a practical parking spot. The interview I will be doing requires me to transport heavy video equipment, ideally for as short a distance as possible.

Historically, I've never had much luck with parking. Last week, I was unable to get a spot in the car park of a hotel where a political conference was taking place.

Instead, I had to park half a mile away and carry my gear. When I got to the venue, a sweaty and agitated mess, I found there was now an empty spot directly outside the front door.

I drive past Belfast Cathedral and turn left. I see it immediately, like an oasis in a desert, an unoccupied parking spot. It is less than 20 yards from the building I am to visit. I compose myself, lest I crash the car in excitement, and slowly reverse into the space.

I turn off the engine and fish out my wallet to get change for the machine. I emit a whine of despair when I realise the wallet contains nine pence, a few euros from a recent Dublin trip and a button which came off the sleeve of my jacket.

My son is at an age now where he likes to visit the shop to buy sweets. I don’t use cash as much as I used to, but when I do, the change I would previously have accumulated, now inevitably goes in the direction of my boy's confectionery purchases.

I know that the parking attendants are active and my anxiety returns. I am sure there must be an ATM somewhere close, but I don’t know where. Furthermore, I know I would have to withdraw the notes, then find a shop to buy something to get change before returning to the inevitable ticket on my car windscreen.

The other option is to surrender my space and go to a multi-storey where I can pay by card. This will involve me being both late for my appointment and frazzled by having to haul my gear across town.

I take a moment. There is another way, although this is virgin territory for me. I am aware that some people pay for their parking using apps on their phones. I've never considered this radical action before, assuming such technological wonders are not for the likes of me. Could this be the solution?

I read the name of the parking company off the coin machine and, after a couple of missteps, manage to find and download the app. It takes a few minutes to enter my bank details and I struggle to read the small print on the phone screen without my glasses, but none of it is as complicated as I feared.

I enter the number of the parking machine and press the button to start paying for parking. A little clock appears on my screen with a running total of the parking charge.

I have done it. I am light and elated. I walk gaily on the short journey to my appointment and complete a successful interview.

When I return home several hours later I am still buzzing and wonder what other new things I could accomplish in my present spirit of daring.

I am about to take some days off work. One of the difficulties I always experience when away from the office is the abundance of email correspondence I continue to receive and the responsibility I feel to reply to much of it. It is not unknown for me to be lying on a beach on a foreign holiday, sending responses to work emails.

I have used email for more than 20 years. Countless times it has been pointed out to me this problem could be negated simply by setting up an 'Out of Office' reply to messages. Yet I have never done it...until now.

It takes a few minutes and a fair bit of Googling but I set up the automated message which tells people I am away, will not be responding, and when I will return to the office. Like the parking app, it was much easier than I imagined and I find myself wondering why I didn’t do this years ago.

Such is my satisfaction that I send myself several emails just for the novelty of receiving a response telling me that I am not working.

Like an excited child, I need someone to share my triumphs with. I wait impatiently for my wife to return home from work and ambush her before she is fully through the front door.

“Send me an email,” I blurt out as she is still trying to remove her coat.

“Hang on, let me get in first.”

I repeat the instruction and she rolls her eye as she removes her phone and dispatches the message.

“Did you get a response?” I inquire eagerly.

She looks at her phone.

“Uh...yeah, I did, an out of office, so what?”

This is not the reaction I had hoped for and my sense of triumph is slightly deflated.

However, my enthusiasm cannot be so easily blunted and as we eat dinner I tell her, at some length about my parking experiences from the morning, how I was stuck in traffic and thought I would be late, how I found a space but then realised I had no change.

My tale, like all great heroic stories, winds towards its dramatic climax as I explain how I downloaded the app and hit the Start Parking button.

My wife nods slowly as she eats a piece of broccoli.

"And did you,” she enquires, "remember to hit the Stop Parking button when you left?”

Aw no.