Who Are You Calling A Nerd??"

I have written before about my elderly mobile phone, it is nine year old and still going strong  - well to be totally honest it isn't exactly going strong, but it does still work. I am waiting to inherit my daughter's backberry she has just got an iphone and has kindly offered mum her old phone. Anyway my present phone works well enough to cope with a few texts every day, mostly texts from Robbie. I still get teased my texts, my son looks at me shakes his head and says "Mother, you are the only person in the world who writes a text in whole sentences with punctuation!". It seems that I can't win because Robbie moans at me for using templates and tells me to make my texts more personal, but this post is not really about my writing style, it is about Robbie's texts.


Robbie can be very persuasive especially when he wants to convince me that I want to get up before the birds on as Saturday morning and spend the whole day travelling on trains. I got one of those kind of persuasive texts from him one day last week, a subtle blend of flattery, temptation and pleading because he wanted me to play trains with him on Saturday. Te odd thing was that the final word of the text "nerd" was rather insulting and not in the 'Uriah Heep' style of the rest of the text. I responded with "Did you call me a nerd" and there was rather a long silence before I go a rather embarrassed response. Apparently he thought he was sending an emoticon, but because my phone is like me (a bit behind the times) it just named the emoticon rather than creating a winking face or whatever it was. I have warned Robbie to be careful who he sends these things to, otherwise his texts could contain unexpected insults!

Time to Say Goodbye?

I have often written about the things that Robbie does to annoy me, but I rarely write about the things that I do to annoy him - yes it's true, I am not perfect!! One of the things that makes Robbie absolutely furious is my attitude to mobile phones. Robbie would find it more acceptable to go out without underwear than to forget his phone, while I still see my phone as something to bury in my handbag just in case I need it. 

I am not sure why there is such a difference in our attitudes to mobile phones, Robbie says that it is because I am old, but I am not so sure, perhaps I am just not as sad as Robbie! I have always seen phones a tool to use when I choose to and I refuse to let the phone rule my life. If someone rings and I don't answer they either know me well enough to contact me some other way or they can wait until I am not busy. 


Sometimes if Robbie rings me on the house phone and it is engaged, he will ring me on the mobile, that annoys me so much. I may have two ears but I only have one mouth, I can't talk to two people at once, so why can't he call back later? I hate having my life ruled by the phone. I am sure there is some hidden connection between my phone and the bathroom door. as soon as I get in there the phone rings and I have to dash downstairs to answer it - and it is almost always Robbie!!

In 1972 Bill DeWitt wrote "The bathtub was invented in 1850 and the telephone in 1875. In other words, if you had been living in 1850, you could have sat in the bathtub for 25 years without having to answer the phone." That sounds like luxury to me. 


Despite my feelings about phones, I have to admit that I have a great sentimental attachment to my mobile phone. It is old now (bought in 2002 in fact) but it has been a very good phone and I didn't see the need to replace it while it was still working. It has been the cause of considerable teasing, and it is known by most of my friends as 'the brick' but I have never been that bothered about what other people think. Now it has gone silent, even when the ringtone is on the loud setting it just gives a faint buzz. It has been like that for months and it doesn't cause me any problems, but it drives Robbie mad and putting up with Robbie in evil troll mode is not fun. So perhaps it is time to admit that my phone has seen better days. I will be sad to say goodbye, there are a lot of precious memories associated with that phone.

I Should Have Stayed in Bed

Robbie went off on a rail tour in the early hours of this morning, so I had the day to myself. I decided that I would get up bright and early and head into town for one or two important purchases that can not be put off any longer. My bed was very comfortable and it was hard to force myself to get up when another half hour in bed listening to Radio 4 seemed so tempting, but I overcame temptation and plodded off to the bathroom. Oreo was sitting at the top of the stairs begging to be fed, I ignored his pleas and sent him back downstairs. Oreo brings out Robbie creative side, I was very impressed by his use of alliteration the other day when he chased the cat out of the kitchen calling him a "Furry Fat F..............". Ever the opportunist Oreo noticed that I had not closed the bedroom door properly and when I came back from the bathroom he was curled up on the end of the bed next to my mobile phone listening to Traffic Line! He must have stepped on the phone and hit the speed dial and found the only number there that will be charged on top of my call plan - typical!

When I came downstairs I found that a scale version of the Alps had been created on our kitchen floor. This was further evidence of Robbie's unique approach to life. He had to stay awake until the early of the morning and he said he would make a start on the weekend laundry. The 'mountains' were Robbie's version of sorting the washing into various loads according to colour - all I can say is that he can identify trains by colour and livery far more accurately than he can sort laundry! I re-sorted the loads and restored some sort of order to the kitchen, then I went to town - not my favourite Saturday morning activity but I couldn't put it off any longer.

I accomplished quite a lot in an hour and by then I'd had more than enough of town it was far too crowded for my liking. The next job on my list was a brief trip to the supermarket, Well, it should have been a brief trip but it seemed as if the whole world had chosen that moment to go to Morrisons, so even parking the car was a challenge. Then when I got inside it looked as if I would never get out again because they had no basket only checkouts working and I refuse to use those dreadful self serve things that shout at you as if you are simple and then announce to the whole store that you have 'a problem in the bagging area'! Finally I got served by a real human being and I was free to enjoy a nice afternoon visiting my friend..

On my way home I had three missed calls from my daughter and two more from my son, so I pulled over and phoned them to see what was wrong. I was relieved to find that there was nothing wrong, my daughter just wanted to make absolutely sure that I would be home in time to give her a lift because she was going out with a couple of friends - nice to know I have my uses!

Lost

I had a very early start on Wednesday morning, I couldn't sleep and dispite my very best efforts I couldn't wake Robbie up either, so I got up at 6am and watched the sun rise over the sea. I had a relaxing couple of hours enjoying the sunshine while playing with Robbie's netbook - I am so glad he confessed because I have really enjoyed playing with it! There was still no movement fom the bedroom by 8.30am so I crept back to bed, determined to wake Robbie up, but I failed dismally, I must have fallen asleep because it was Robbie who woke me with a nice cup of tea just before 9am.

We had a lovely unhurried morning. Robbie made a cooked breakfast and we took things so steadily that by the time we got around to our after breakfast walk along the beach it was lunchtime. It was so nice on the beach, I was busy taking photos and paddling in the sea while Robbie strolled along the tide line doing his best to keep his feet (and his red converse trainers) dry. We walked a long way and by the time we got back we were both ready for a nice cup of tea, but panic set in as I reached the back gate and realised that I had lost my phone on the beach. We rushed back and retrace our steeps but even after a careful search we couldn't find the phone. It wasn't really the value of the phone that bothered me, and it only contained my pay as you go 'holiday' sim card, but I was sorry to lose it because there were a few special texts on it.

Hours later the loss of the phone was still troubling me and I decided to go and have one last look for the phone. It was small and grey and it would blend perfectly with the pebbles on the beach especially if it was face down. The tide was further in by now so it was hard to be sure about where I had walked and I decided to hust wander along the beach. Amazingly I had only gone a short distance when I spotted the phone on the sand, it was still working perfectly. I am so pleased that I decided to go back because if I had left it much longer the tide would have covered that strech of sand and the phone would have been washed away.

Ups and Downs

Several weeks ago I wrote about the mishap I had with my mobile phone, it took a tumble into a (newly cleaned) toilet. I dried it straight away and then took it apart and placed it into a zippy bag full of rice to draw the moisture from the phone. It stayed in the rice for a fortnight, but when I tried the phone it still didn't work, so it went back in the rice for another couple of weeks then I too it out again, but the phone was still dead. Before I had a chance to put the phone back in the rice, Meg (the dog) stole the bag of dry rice and ate it all, I was scared she would get badly dehydrated but she survived with no ill effects, I guess I should be grateful that she didn't eat the phone!

The phone was an old friend, it belonged to Eric my first husband, he bought it in 2002 and when he died in 2003 I kept it. I know it is silly sentiment really, but it helps, there was a voice message on it that Eric left when he was messing around with his new phone and I was so sad to lose it. I had also lost lots of texts, my birthday calendar and loads of important numbers. I had another phone but it just wasn't the same. I had given up hope of recovering the data, but a friend said she would take it to a place that had helped her with her phone. Amazingly they got the phone working again, and when I got it back I had a huge grin on my face. In the next few days I will be backing up all the data! It has been a difficult week, but getting my phone and all the data back has means a lot to me.

What a Week!

I didn't have much time to get things done last week, my computer died and refused to be revived, then I had problems with the one I bought to replace it and I had to spend hours sorting it out. Then this week horror of horrors by beloved mobile phone took a dive into the toilet (clean water). I dried it straight away and it is now shut in a zippy bag full of rice to help absorb any moisture, but it is as dead as a dodo and I am devastated. I have a couple of very precious voice recordings on that phone and I can't face the thought that they are gone forever. If anyone knows how to recover those recordings and my contact list please let me know, it would mean so much to me.

The highlight of last week for me was seeing the worst prime minister in my lifetime walking out of Downing Street, if only I had confidence that the new government will do a better job. It seems odd to me that the Liberals can do so badly in the election but end up in the government. I was especially disappointed that the shifty looking ginger haired one was given a job in government, he looks dodgy. Oh well I guess time will tell.

Signal Failure?

He really is a slow learner! There was absolute silence all day yesterday, no texts, no phone calls, nothing. I went to bed at a few minutes to midnight and I was sound asleep when the phone rang. It was Robbie, totally oblivious of the time. I had a moan about the lack of contact and he said that there is no signal downstairs, but higher up in the building he can get a signal. On a believability scale that is poor, so poor that it is almost Network Rail rail standard! I was too sleepy to want to talk much especially when there was a danger of straying onto the subject of trains at any moment. I ended the conversation and settled down to sleep again with a crazy image in my mind of all the people at Robbie's meeting wandering around waving their phones in the air trying to get a signal!

Not having Robbie around has it's compensations, it is much quieter and I get to do as I like. I had liver and bacon yesterday, it is my favourite meal but I hardly ever have it because Robbie doesn't like it. I also got two extra hours in bed this morning, I didn't need to get up until 7am, I could get used to that!

Questions, Questions.

We went to Sam's parent's evening yesterday but Robbie seemed unable to ignore his phone for more than a minute or two. On the way into the school he was having a text conversation about what train he caught to get home and how long it took him to walk to the station. He put the phone away, but as we were sitting in the classroom listening to a rather pleasing report of Sam's performance in science another text arrived almost silently, if the teacher noticed his suit pocket vibrating he didn't comment on it. As soon as we were back in the corridor he checked his text to find that was yet another colleague asking about the exact make up of a certain train! Robbie had to reply (in detail) before we could go and talk to Sam's English teacher – and they say that men can't multi task!

Living Dangerously

Robbie has really overstepped the mark this time. He went off on his rail tour on Friday and was due home at tea time on Sunday, I took that to mean 5pm – 6pm. While he was playing trains I was running around doing all those mundane things that you only notice if they don't happen, washing, cleaning, putting away, pet care, food shopping, cooking, filling the car up and picking people up or dropping them off. I know he thinks we have a succession of 'good fairies' to do all that while I sit around watching Judge Judy, but I have news for him, they didn't turn up!!

I had a couple of brief phone calls from him on Saturday, but I was busy and all he could talk about was the rail tour. On Saturday evening I took my mobile and the house phone up to bed thinking that he may ring me to say goodnight – he didn't. He didn't ring in the morning either, I was a bit hurt, but I got on with my work and I was rather distracted because my little nephew had been admitted to hospital with breathing problems. 5pm came and went and there was no word from Robbie, so I began calling and texting with no response. He has two phones so I found it hard to believe that they both had no battery or no signal, but I continued to call al evening with no response. He was coming from Preston, I know it is in the north, but surely it shouldn't take an entire day to get home!

At 10.05pm I got a text asking for a lift, so his phone was working fine when he wanted something!I picked him up at about 10.30pm, he didn't manage more than a couple of words and there was no explanation or apology for not answering my calls. When he got home he went prowling around the house looking for things that hadn't been done, he didn't find any – or at least if he did he had the sense not to mention it! For reasons best known to him he decided to potter around in the kitchen tidying things that were already the way I wanted them. I had moved the furniture in the lounge and everyone agreed that the room worked better that way, Robbie didn't comment on it, but after I had gone to bed he moved it back. Clearly he has a death wish! This morning I put it back to the way I wanted it – two can play at that game!

Conspiricy Theory

I am old enough to remember a time when our lives were not ruled by mobile phones and occasionally I feel nostalgic for those days when you could go out and not be troubled by messages or phone calls. During my childhood the house phone was connected to the wall and nobody thought of phones in every room, often it was positioned on a table in the hall and it certainly didn't dominate the house. Now I am driven to distraction by the phone, we have two cordless phones but when the it rings the handset is never on the base and I have to sprint from one room to the next looking for it. It is usually in Emily or Laura's bedroom, but by the time I have found it the ringing has stopped and I am left to wonder who was calling.

I think our bathroom is bugged, as soon as I get in there you can guarantee that the phone will ring. I would understand it if I shut myself in there with a magazine, but I don't stay in there any longer than necessary. I know the caller can't see you but I am never going to be comfortable about chatting on the phone while using the smallest room. I have to rush out in a dishevelled state to find and answer the phone and it is almost always Robbie just ringing to say hello. I don't know how he manages to time it so badly so often. Even more annoying is when I have just got into a relaxing hot bath, the phone rings and my moment of luxury is ruined. It is bad enough to drag myself out of the bath and stand there dripping and freezing to death just to answer the phone, but when it is Robbie ringing to tell me something 'exciting' about a train that he saw on his way to work I find it very hard to be civil to him. We probably couldn't manage without our mobiles for long, but just occasionally I long for the way it used to be! Of course I could ignore the phone, but it could be important. My parents may need help or Sam's school may need to get hold of me, I can't ignore it.

Lost!

Those people who know Robbie will perhaps understand that I don't always listen to Robbie when he is talking. He talks almost constantly and it is like a roller-coaster ride, dragging up hill via a long and contorted explanation, careering down hill as information tumbles out faster than you can take it in, twisting and turning from one apparently unrelated subject to the next and looping back to cover the same subject all over again. It is exhausting and if I am working I find it easier to just make the odd non committal grunt without actively listening to him. OK, I know that is a bit mean but it is a form of self preservation, my head would explode if I tried to listen to everything he said!

Robbie went off to play trains at the weekend, he left with his weekend bag at 6am on Friday and I didn't expect to see him again until Sunday afternoon. He phoned several times on Friday and in the evening he let me know that he had arrived at the Travelodge, but that was the last time I heard from him. I know I can't compete with his precious trains, but when I didn't hear from him on Sunday morning I started to become anxious. I realised that I didn't know where he was, who he was with with or how he was getting back because I hadn't listened. He had two phones with him, both were switched off, I kept ringing, but I didn't know what else to do. As the day went on I became convinced that he'd had an accident or something bad had happened. It was about 6pm when I finally tracked him down, apparently he had forgotten to take his phone charger, he was surrounded by people with phones but he didn't think it was important to send me just one text to let me know he was OK. He isn't in the dog house, he is somewhere much more remote than the dog house!

Superior Knowledge!

Robbie went to work in a strop this morning because we had managed to disagree about a sending a text message. I am not a gadget person in the way that Robbie is, as far as I am concerned a mobile phone is for making phone calls and sending the odd message. I don't use my phone as a mobile entertainment system in the way that most people seem to these days. It is a bit of a family joke that I don't understand text language, I use proper words and to everyone's amusement I use punctuation as well! It takes me ages to send a text and usually I ask Robbie to do it for me because he is lightening fast. Mad as it sounds I have a sentimental attachment to my phone, it is about 6 years old and to be brutally honest it has seen better days and it is a bit temperamental. This morning there was a text from my friend to say that her baby had arrived, I asked Robbie to text back for me but he complained that the space button wasn't working. I told him to get the space from the symbol menu instead, but he just had a strop and claimed that he couldn't do it. I showed him how, but he stomped off still muttering about me being unreasonable. I was a bit surprised by his reaction but I think he was just cross because for once I could do something with a gadget that Robbie didn't know how to do! He did apologise - eventually.

Sea Birds 01.06.07

Today is the first day of Laura’s birthday celebrations, her birthday is actually tomorrow, but we will be travelling home tomorrow so she decided to start the celebrations today! She chose three of her presents and all her cards to open today and she has saved the others until tomorrow morning. She chose well and found her main present – a new mobile. She spent the rest of the morning relaxing on the beach keying all her vital data to her new phone. Gone are the days Barbie and Sylvanian Families, it was so much easier when the birthday shopping could all be done at Toys R Us.

It has been a lovely day. I went out for a walk first thing the light is so good for photography on a clear morning. I am sure I could stay here for ever and never tire of the view and the feeling of being connected with the world around me.

We spent most of the day on the beach followed by a quick trip to St Merryn and then to Tesco to collect Laura’s birthday cake – a rich chocolate cake covered in slivers of grated chocolate.

Robbie and I walked along the coast path towards the lifeboat house this evening, it is so beautiful just sitting there looking out across the bay. We saw two of those black sea birds whose name reduces Sam and Robbie to the worst excesses of school boy humour, and usually results in a list of the rudest combinations of bird names they can think of. I wonder if Robbie will ever grow up!

Even later in the evening it was warm enough to sit outside and enjoy a cup of tea. Oh well, back to reality tomorrow.

The Sights You See When You Haven't Got Your Gun! 12.03.02

Robbie had an early start this morning, he is off to Leeds to talk to Network Rail - I suppose someone has to talk to them! He has this annoying habit of setting his phone to wake his alarm clock up. He fails to answer the phone, then sets the alarm to snooze. He seems quite capable of doing exactly that, but snoozing is the very last thing on my mind. I end up threatening him with a near death experience and he plods off to seek sanctuary in the bathroom. By this time I am wide awake and all I can do is fantasise about taking revenge on him - maybe a mouse trap in the bed would be fun!

As if that wasn't enough I was then treated to the alarming sight of him trotting around in nothing but long socks and knickers looking for a shirt. The socks make him look like an overgrown boy scout! I had ironed 7 shirts and a mountain of other stuff at the weekend, but somehow I had 'conspired' to leave him shirtless this morning. Apparently only one shirt in his vast collection is suitable to wear to Leeds, and oddly enough it just happened to be the only unironed one!

On the subject of clothes, I watched a bit of the Rugby yesterday, It was good to see England win, but they are a fiercely ugly bunch! What was going on with the shorts the French were wearing? They were ridiculously short, it looked as if they were wearing nappies. I'm not really into rugby, Arsenal are much prettier!