The Great Phone Dilemma

Most of my friends know that I am pretty hopeless when it comes to mobile phones. I wasn’t always quite so dysfunctional as I am now. I completely ignore my mobile phone when I am at home, I have a landline. My new mobile does not receive signal in this house. A guy recently told me that the reason nobody can get mobile signal in this house is because of the underfloor heating. Who knows if he is right? We had just presumed that it is because the walls are so solid.

For years my mobile phone was always someone else’s cast off. People would give me a phone and I would pay to top up the credit Eventually someone introduced me to a smart phone. Along with the smartphone came Instagram, Whatsapp and other phone apps (I cannot remember what they were all called) which gave me the chance to send and receive communications with photos and videos as well as text.

I was baffled by the hundreds of photos that arrived on a daily basis – what people were having for breakfast, lunch, dinner, their pets, their new this, their new that, their dream this and their dream that, holiday spam, nights out on the town, days out at the fair, even pregnancy scans – it was all becoming a bit nuts! What was weird was the scale – the sheer quantity of posts and that the interconnections were so vast and sprawling.

You may be aware, if you have read my STORM IN A TEA-CUP series that I had a very bad experience which was magnified by the use of these – what do they call them? – social media apps? Rumours and gossip, slander spread like wildfire. The subjects of which were Jack and me. Anyway…I have not had a smart phone for the past four years.

When I was in Australia I promised Goldfinch I will get myself one as it will make it easier to keep in touch with him, Only…I haven’t yet. I am so reluctant. I want to be able to communicate more easily with Goldfinch, but I dread the thought of having the burden of a smart phone again. What a dilemma! Only I love him you see. Have I mentioned that before? And love makes you do things you don’t really want to do.

I have a little basic phone – which is really lousy I have to admit. It won’t allow me to send text messages to Australia. I often forget to take it out with me. My friends get cross because they are ringing and texting my mobile and it is on my bedside table or in a coat pocket in my closet.

I find it very hard to use. The key pad is strange and it takes forever to type a message. So I have been sending less and less text messages. Nowadays I use my landline a lot and I use e–mails a lot. And the mobile phone is forgotten, neglected and abandoned.

However…today, I had to show a builder around my flat. And I noticed my debit card and my little mobile were on the coffee table, so I picked them up and put them in my pocket. And it was because the phone was in my pocket that I felt it buzzing (I keep it on silent all the time) and pulled it out of my pocket.

Can you imagine my delight when I saw it was Goldfinch???!!! I was happy right down to my toes all afternoon because I heard his gorgeous voice. And I went to bed feeling so glad to be in love.

If you are in love. If you are married or in a relationship – then please do something for me. Ring your spouse or partner. It doesn’t matter if you only spoke this morning, or if they are in the next room. Just ring them and tell them that you were thinking of them and that you just called to say that you loved them.

Because something like that is priceless. it’s enough to make your loved one forget all sorts of sad things and to to feel happiness right down to their toes all day long!