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It’s a terrible thing, you know. At heart, I’m a total Luddite. I’d have been in there with the best of them, smashing up the power looms, if I’d been born in the right century. Thing is though, techno-dependency creeps up on even the best of us. Yesterday morning, I couldn’t get Windows to start on my laptop.
I sent out a stricken call for help to my brother – who is a Geek, but an awfully nice and very obliging one. He came, he scooped it up, he bore it away … and several hours later, bore it back again, all mended.
True, it’s not quite the laptop as I remember it, on account of his having to reinstall Windows, but I’m not complaining … all my documents and emails are intact and the rest can be resurrected. In other words, it could have been worse.
I wasn’t computerless all day – I was using the Matriarch’s desktop. Nor had I lost anything precious in the way of information, because I’d recently backed up all the important stuff (there’s a moral there, my children …) but nevertheless I felt a bit bereft … as if I’d lost something precious to me. It was a sort of mini-mourning.
And that’s just pathetic and nerdy.
Get a grip, woman.
Do you know what most people who arrive at this blog accidentally are actually LOOKING for, according to the search terms?
Go on. Guess. Take a wild swoop at it.
Gretchen Stevens? Nope.
Moira-Brain-the-Size-of-a-Planet-(and-an-ego-to-match)-Briggs? Nope.
Healing? Nope.
Complementary Care? Nope.
Try ‘Goldfinches’ …
Once long ago in a blogpost far, far away I wrote a post about what aggressive little sods goldfinches are and postulated that their cute little faces were red so that the blood wouldn’t show.
Here – to refresh your memory – it is: Goldfinches.
Ever since then, the goldfinch groupies have been beating a path to my door.
So, in order to keep them amused (Hi guys!) I’ll tell you all that I did the RSPB’s Big Garden Bird Watch today. I waited until the garden was alive with feathered fiends friends, put the food out, drew back the curtains, pulled up a chair and waited patiently. Nothing. Every single one of them had vanished.
Now you MIGHT say it was because I startled them, but you need to know that I have nurtured the country’s most cocky, assertive birds. If the food isn’t out on time, they’re kicking in the front door. When I DO go out and feed them, they’re virtually perching on my head and ripping the stuff from my hands. Trust me – they are NOT shy. THIS is how I know they were doing it deliberately. It’s great isn’t it? I bankrupt myself buying enough birdfood to feed a small developing nation and – when I really want them to strut their avian stuff – what do the ungrateful little buggers do? Right. Pull a fade.
I did, however see four goldfinches.
They were, of course, chiefly engaged in trying to rip each other’s wings off.
Back in the autumn, I sent a copy of each of this year’s trivia quizzes to an old friend in the US, to keep them amused over Christmas and New Year. They email me yesterday, to chat about politics, life, work, their two books-in-progress – you know – the usual stuff.
Then, right at the very end, they signed off with a PS:
“Do people ACTUALLY TRY to do those CONTESTS FROM HELL you put together??????”
I went to the funeral of a long-time friend and colleague today, and found myself sitting beside someone I knew quite well at the back of the crematorium. While we were waiting for the Guest of Honour to arrive (to the strains of Bruce Springsteen – how COOL was THAT!?) I got into conversation with my neighbour about burial rites. (Don’t blame me – SHE started it …).
I said that I rather liked the Parsees’ Towers of Silence … where they leave the dearly departed to be yummed up by vultures. It was then that it occurred to me what an ace idea that would be for the Chase. The ultimate environmental recycling project. We could, I explained, knock together a couple of wooden towers on the back lawn and hire them out … it could be a spectacle to rival Feeding the Herons at Muncaster Castle …
The trouble is, I’m not at all sure at what point in that train of thought I actually had the sense to shut up.
I don’t THINK I got as far as Feeding the Herons. With luck, I may not even have got as far as hiring them out … but on the other hand …
I’ve long realized that life in these high northern hills is different to that in – let’s say – the middle of Basingstoke. (For the avoidance of enraged comments and law suits from loyal Basingstokians, I have nothing in particular against the town. It is, in fact, years since I last set foot in the place, so there’s a good chance it might actually be fit for human life by now …).
My point is, that many things which work perfectly well on Basingstoke High Street are a dead loss or – worse – a downright pain in the fundament, in West Cumbria.
Take franking machines.
We currently have one on a free trial. Well, they don’t CALL it a franking machine, they call in a Postage Meter, but …
I was talked into it on the grounds that it would save time, money and work … and what’s more – no special postal arrangements have to be made – you can just put the franked metered mail in the post like ordinary letters.
What was NOT mentioned at the time was that the postage paid is only valid on the day you frank meter the stuff. This would not, of course, be a problem in good old Basingstoke, where you can just nip out to the PO with the day’s post before close of play. Here, we rely on the good nature of the postmen and women to take our mail away when they deliver every day – a service we very much appreciate, I hasten to add. Unfortunately, we never know when the post’s going to arrive – it can be anywhere between 10.00am and 2.00pm – so you need to be psychic to get the franked metered mail out there in time to catch the post.
Once the post has gone, your only option is to turn the date on the franking machine postage meter forward a day … which is fine in theory and would work a treat if the little bugger stayed set – instead of which it resets itself to today’s date as soon as your back’s turned.
Then there’s the fact that in order for your mail to go out with the ordinary post, you have to put it in special envelopes, which you have to buy …
Have I mentioned the SPEED of the thing? I could stick on three stamps and invade a small Balkan state in the time it takes it to chug and whirr and finally condescend to print something.
Factor into that the cost of the ink (and of course, you invalidate everything if you use ‘compatible’ cartidges, don’t you?), the franking labels, the fee for topping up the postage, the monthly rental, my psychoanalyst’s fees … and I won’t even mention the completely blank expression on the local Postmaster’s face when I explained my problem to him.
So … next week … it goes back.
Oh … and by the way, Messrs Pitney Bowes …
IT’S A BLOODY FRANKING MACHINE!
Back at work. Ground frozen solid. Office full of junk. New postage meter machine thingy waiting for me to try and work out how the hell to use it. Pile of post on my desk. Half my stuff not where it should be. Mattress propped against the bookcase.
I need a cup of coffee. Real coffee. From a percolator. The lethal stuff.
Happy New Year.
