I was very tired after our day on the North Norfolk Railway so we decided to have a quieter day on Thursday. It was another warm sunny day and we were content to stay around the bungalow to enjoy the beach and the garden. We took a gentle drive into Mundesley and had lunch at the Beach Cafe. The beach was packed and as we sat by the cafe window looking out at the beach I saw little children paddling, older children in wetsuits playing on body boards, children with buckets and spades digging holes and building sandcastles and parents and grandparents keeping a close eye on the little ones. It brought back so many memories of holidays with our children as they were growing up. My son loved to dig holes and then he would run backwards and forwards filling buckets with sea water and pouring it into the hole. He would get very angry with the sand for stealing his water and it would take considerable effort to distract him from his futile task, but the promise of an ice cream would usually do the trick.
My son is now nearly eighteen and he has chosen to stay at home under the watchful supervision of his older sisters. Judging by his texts it sounds as if they have had a rather eventful week
"It was only a matter of time until it went to their heads" Monday
"Your daughters have a serious Napoleon complex!" Tuesday
"Please educate L that what she says to me, if said to anyone else, will very much shorten her life expectancy" Wednesday
As the week went on there were several more messages of the same type, including one suggesting that my older daughter's boyfriend deserves a medal! I couldn't help smiling at some of his comments, I guess most eighteen year olds are impossible at times and adding Asperger Syndrome to the mix certainly doesn't make things any easier!
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!
I spent another Saturday without Robbie, he did text a few times, but it doesn't really make up for not being here. I did ordinary things, a trip to the supermarket, housework, my writing work, feeding hungry animals and hungry people and other exciting tasks. Emily was busy packing to go on holiday to Cornwall first thing in the morning, I would love to be in Cornwall again.
Robbie sent me a text asking me if I would like to go to Glasgow on a rail tour, I thanked him but said no. If I go to Glasgow I want to go on a Pendolino, I don't see the point of going on an old train when you could go on a new one. Robbie thinks I am mad, but he is not really in the best position to judge, he is not exactly normality personified! He seemed to take great offense at my lack of good taste when it comes to trains and he tried to get me to change my mind, but in the end he gave up and said he would ring me a bit later on. I waited for his call, but by 2am I gave up and fell asleep.
A few days ago when I had objected to him going on this rail tour he reassured me that he would be home early on the Sunday morning, in time to make me a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich. I woke early on Sunday morning and I was looking forward to seeing Robbie again after almost a week away. I listened to the radio thinking that it wouldn't be long before he got home, time went on, I had my bath, made my own cup of tea and listened to the Archers, but still there was no sign of him. There were no texts, no phone calls, and no reply when I tried to contact him. Lunch time came and went and I got on with my ordinary routine, but I was increasingly worried and annoyed about the lack of contact. Finally sometime after 3.30pm Robbie phoned me with the usual set of excuses. He was too tired to phone last night, he overslept, his phone was dead, there are no payphones in Birmingham, he forgot to ring me.
What annoyed me most was that he thought I would be OK about it - I wasn't! I reminded him that he had been put on a final warning the last time he did this. He seemed to think it was all very trivial - I didn't! Everyone has their limits and he was about to discover mine! At just after 6pm I picked him up from the station.
I had plenty to say, but it resulted in me offering him a choice, me or the rail tours. When put like that it only took him a few minutes to decide - in favour of the rail tours! So he packed his things and I took him back to the station, with him telling me that I had given him an impossible choice. He didn't seem to understand that I found it deeply hurtful (but not surprising) to come second to a train! He plodded off to the platform feeling very hard done by. I waited in the car park and about ten minutes later I got a text saying "OK, you win!" and shortly afterwards he plodded back to the car. The silly thing is I don't want to 'win' I just want a lot more consideration.!
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!
I am a person of fairly simple tastes, no I'm not talking about why I was attracted to Robbie – that is a mystery even to me! What I mean is that I don't want an overly complicated life, I use my mobile phone to make calls and send texts, I don't need it to play music, take photos or access the internet. With my house phone I just want it to make and receive calls, nothing complicated, so when I had to buy a new phone I just bought a simple one with two handsets. Robbie set it up while I was working, it looked fairly nice – until it rang! I couldn't live with that, it played a very tinny version of the William Tell Overture, it was like an angry child demanding attention NOW. I told Robbie that I just wanted it to ring and I honestly didn't believe him, so he ran through the options. The Minute Waltz was equally annoying, there was another tune that sounded like a dalek on speed, yet another sounded like a car alarm and the final couple of options were unspeakable. There was no simple ringing sound so I have to put up with the least annoying of the options for now, but I want a phone with a proper old fashioned ring.
