As mentioned in my previous posting, Brugiana is a place of peace and calm - except for me, for I am madder than a herring with an unscratchable itch. Mobile phones, that is what and they are mocking me. My phone is supplied by O2 but despite being surrounded by mountains infested with phone masts, contributing as much to the scenery as UKIP offer to rational debate about progress in the real world, I can neither make nor receive calls and data is just a distant memory of watching Star Trek while helping with night feeds for No.1 daughter. But at least I have a plan. Anticipating the potential for phone problems, I have brought a spare phone, the one that no one knows about – I call it my peace phone. I use the peace phone, supplied by Tesco mobile to contact O2, who tell me that they have blocked my account due to unusual usage overseas. That would be the unusual usage that I told them I would be using before going overseas. After gently chiding them for not informing me and that a text would have been nice at least, they agree to up my spending limit and reconnect me. They tell me this can take up to 24 hours but usually only takes 1 or 2 hours. A day and a half later – do the maths and notice the discrepancy – I still have no signal but at least I have the peace phone, which is now only peaceful in a Tony Blair kind of interpretation of peace. I use the peace phone to dial O2, only to get a recorded message telling me that I have used up my allowance and need to top up before transferring me to an automatic service. Having pressed keys to indicate my intention to give them money, it asks me to key in the number of the bank account from which the account is paid. This should be easy, I have had this account for over 30 years and type it in with gay abandon, it is rejected. I type it in more carefully, it is rejected. I construct an idiot guide by which I write down the number of my account and type it in with slow and deliberate movements, the response is as though I had suggested to the Tory conference that they should look after the poorest and weakest in society first. I end the call and dial Tesco customer services. Tesco customer services informs me via recorded message that, in order to contact Tesco Customer Services I require credit on my phone and helpfully transfers me to the automated payment line that had laughed so mercilessly at my feeble attempts to buy the credit I would need to talk to Tesco Customer Services. I am now officially a herring with an unscratchable itch and an inability to interact with the world outside an oasis of calm and love. In honour of Tony Blair, my anger is currently concealed but could be deployed at very short notice and the peace phone could become a projectile of mass destruction. Those of you who know me reasonably well will know that, besides an undying ambition to communicate with the world at large, I also maintain the hope that one day I will jump a motorbike through a hoop of fire or drive a rally car. I am poised at the top of a forest track, am unlikely to meet traffic coming my way for the next 5 miles and have a very powerful 4x4 car, for which I am insured for any excess in relation to damage caused. My smile is broad and I feel that my whistling gained a slight Scandinavian accent as I rev the engine. As I motor through the trees, simultaneously focussed on the challenge and lost in the fulfillment of a young boy’s dream, I become gradually aware that my co=pilots are not fully cooperating. Instead of yelling instructions such as ‘straight 150, left 90, pedal to the floor, ooh you can get all 4 wheels off the ground there’ both No.1 daughter and No.1 Dad are issuing more cautionary suggestions and while, in my imagination, the handbrake plays a significant part in my drift around a 270 degree hairpin bend, the reality is somewhat different. Still, I do make it down to the tarmac in 3 minutes less than yesterday, so I think that counts as honours even on both sides, even if there is no laurel wreath to greet me as we pull into the car park down in the town. Legs stretched, cappucini and gelati consumed (my favourite combination – a scoop each of coffee, nut and chocolate) I fail to secure a wifi connection anywhere and so attempt to deal with my frustrations by the medium of auto-expression but find that the view of the setting sun through the trees is so beautiful, I have to stop and both admire and contemplate it. Zucchini flowers in batter give the evening meal a chippy tea with a continental twist kind of feel to it. One of the village residents has a birthday which means a small celebration involving cake and bubbly, so the Fanta Orange rounds things off quite nicely. As the community returns to darkness, I prowl around hurling silent insults to all things mobile and telephonic before taking to my bed at a ridiculously early hour and letting the calm of the mountain night envelopes me in velvety darkness and I sleep the sleep of those who are really going to sort things out tomorrow but right now I am rather tired because of all this fresh air.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 06:54:11 +0000