Oh well, here goes …. People keep telling me I should write a blog – perhaps as a means of channelling my rants in another direction – but it would help if I knew what the hell a blog is?! No matter, can’t be that hard and I did write a diary for years … Quite fancy being a Carrie Bradshaw and she did end up with Big!
So, day off and it is teaming down outside. 25th June, we’ve had no Summer whatsoever and the nights are drawing in! I used to think I was one of those people whose cup was always half empty but, you know what, I’m not. It’s taken some time but I have gradually accepted that life is a bitch!
A teenager in the 70s, I would happily have stayed there! The sun shone, the Eagles played and the most we had to worry about was how much prep we had or organising the next party. I tell my kids that we used to go off riding for the day, no hats, no nothing and our parents had no way of contacting us ….. and they didn’t worry! Those were the days before ….. yep, mobile phones and computers. There it is, superb lead into something I can rant about!
Just ignore the profusion of exclamation marks. It’s an addiction. Some people are addicted to chocolate and then there’s me, addicted to exclamation marks ….. ok, and wine! Mobile phones? I suppose like the rest of the world I, too, have come to rely on mine almost like a second skin but I like to think I use it properly as a means of communication alone. I remember being so excited when we got our first ‘brick’; and, yes, it was ‘ours’ in that it was shared and used really for the car in case of breakdown. It had a valid use. Then … I chose my first, personal, phone which was an Ericsson and flipped open as in ‘Beam me up, Scotty!’ from Star Trek. For anyone that doesn’t get that, condolences.
I can’t believe I am still writing about mobile phones when there are now more pressing issues. Suffice to say, I would still be using that little Ericsson phone had I not reversed over it after it dropped out while I was putting Wilbur in the back of the car! I, then, remember going to replace it and causing great hilarity when I insisted I had to have a phone with buttons. There is no way I was going to use the ‘slide’ technique required of the touch screen and thus I acquired my Blackberry which I haven’t reversed over, as yet, and which has become rather attached to me. Something I have learned about me, actually – I have no interest in one-upmanship or the need for ‘the latest’ of anything; instead my phone, like my car, has become an extension of me. How I loved my old Golf GTI and I would still be happily driving it today had it not all but ‘died’ on me. So much so that, in the end, I used to have to get out of the car, lift the bonnet and re-attach some hook to something else in order for the gear box to function. If nothing else, that Golf taught me a lot about cars and therefore, when the time came, it wasn’t going to just any old home! Five years earlier, whilst occupying its usual spot for repair at the Village Garage, some guy left his card and number should I be interested in selling. No chance! However, when the time came, I searched high and low for that card and found it. I got his mother who gave me his new number and my precious car eventually went to the guy who loved it so much he’d been stalking me for years!!
Getting carried away here. You will believe me when I say I usually have to send my letters by parcel post! Letters? What the hell are letters, I hear you ask? Don’t start me! Suffice to say, I still morn the demise of the inkwell!
Just returned from a shopping foray with Manny. My conclusion? Can’t stand this tendency for cloning! Widespread throughout life today, what is this need for everything to look the same? If you look around, the majority of cars are silver and can you tell the difference between a Mercedes, a BMW or an Audi?! A Golf is a Polo and everything has shrunk! Looking at men’s shirts, this afternoon, they’re all the same and so boring. What happened to individuality? What happened to daring to be different? What happened to choice? It is as though all the colour must be sucked from the world taking all the character with it. In its place, everything is grey and uniform. One need only look at the buildings thrown up today and morn the loss of houses and rooms with character ….. and storage!
Personally, I don’t want to be like anybody else; I like being my own person and voicing my own opinions. As I have said many times, I would happily have my epitaph read ‘At least she was never boring!’.
Trish, signing off to partake of her domestic duties. I shall refill my glass on the way to the cooker. Until tomorrow …..Happy Birthday, Billy, wherever you are! With me always.
