Thanks for the replies. I'm not totally committed yet but rather taken with some of the kit. One popped up on our local buy/sell FB site the other day, but haven't been able to tie the seller down to serious dialogue.
A pal tells me he's going to use the free (with I think, a MacBook Air duo i5 from a big name store.) After years with Word he's going to try to master this freebie. I'm not that brave. I have no idea what the freebie is. It seems unlikely they would install Open office.
Somehow he's managed to get McAffee paid version! Snow and Eskimos, comes to mind.