My mother speaks of my step being a source of life-long pain to her, that it is a living death, etc. By the same post I had several letters from anxious relatives, telling me that it was my duty to come home and thus ease my mother's anxiety.
Your English style will no doubt put all the other gentlemen to bed. I speak figuratively, of course.
I can't live without my smartphone, but I really geek on coding. It's not so much technology that I like, but puzzle solving.

