permitted by katharine eastman
yes this is so very very (too very very) like some other things lately - you didn't need them, you don't need this. I probably didn't need to make it, but it was (is) 5 o'clock in the morning and there were/are few other alternatives - reading or watching a film - fine things when the mood is on, but the mood right now isn't on. The cover too is lazy - pathway way off away - the usual. Hundreds of albums now and I have found my comfort zone. It didn't really take long.
It's just that right now the one thing I like doing most of all is going on my long-ish walks. They're the priority. Everything else is sliding away. Yesterday was cloudy and bright and dry and beautiful and quite warm once you got going - I went on lots of familiar paths (incl the pictured bit) and lots of new-to-me stretches - it is good to accept a challenge, shoot or be shot, the high afterwards if it works.
When I got back home I got a text on my ancient phone. It was from my service-provider whatever - O2. It said that they're ending their 2G and 3G services in a couple of months and that my phone would no longer work - just become another piece of useless junk in this world where everything is getting better and happier and faster and sexier and cooler and "progress" really is working and rates of suicide and depression and mental illness have fallen to almost zero - yes I am a totally deluded cunt who parrots the shite that rich people tell me.
I don't have a landline. So in June/July I will no longer have a phone number unless I get a new phone. I love my little white flip-phone which tells me the time and accepts calls (I almost never phone anyone - average about one outgoing call per century) and texts - again I never text anyone, and the only texts I get tend to be some total strangers who've made up a phone number (by chance, mine) for some delivery service or pet-grooming shop.
If I use the phone so little then surely I won't miss it when it is kapput. But there are rare moments in a year when it is useful to know the time - I've never worn a watch. And oh, you know, you do need to have a phone number when it comes to filling in forms to buy some shitty ticket to see some shitty band or whatever, a number to keep the taxman quiet, a number for the surgery to send me texts to remind me to get a bowel screening or whatever.
I did have a quick internetty search to see what things are out there for luddites who just want the minimal. Ideally I just want exactly the same as I've got, only with 4G or 5G or 9G or whatever works. I can still remember buying my current phone - a decade ago (?) - in Asda, it was £10 ...... but now they seem to be about £60 and they're all advertised as Phones For The Elderly - give one to granny and make sure she presses the SOS button whenever she falls. I don't want an SOS button.
Yes I am """elderly""" and yes I have fallen. But I just get up and carry on. Weirdly, what will force me to be a sell-out and to get another phone won't be the worry that I will need help from other people, but that other people will need help from me. Incredibly for someone as lazy and easy-going as me, there are people out there who sleep better at night knowing that they can ring me at any hour and I'll come running - yes I might be """elderly""" but I can still run.
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photo Hampshire yesterday - this is a favourite spot for me, and a few years ago I took the cover-photo for an early album from here ("the holiday") - it's a footpath all right but the farmers often grow crops all over it and make it impossible to follow - once in a while they mark it out, and when they do it makes the day much better
