Bad day, rain...

It's not been a great day.

After a night feeling rough I got up feeling worse and after a few minutes staggering about feeling no better I conceded I should take the day off sick. This was rather irritating as quite apart from the myriad things I should have been doing at work, I had stayed up til 11pm the previous night completing work for the morning. No matter, I thought. I will dial in to the company network from my laptop. But every time I made a connection and was about to upload to the server, the connection was dropped.

So I took 2 paracetamol and went back to bed. But the phone rang, then stopped after one ring. Then again. And again. On investigation I realised my phone line was now unreachable, for reasons unknown. My decision to leave BT this month and go to Sky suddenly wasn't looking such good value for money. I unplugged the phone and went back to bed.

But I was now completely awake. My mobile phone rang. It was Vodafone trying to sell me insurance for my second hand pay-as-you-talk phone that I hardly use. I gave them short shrift and got off the phone.

Not long after this Hayley returned home with Oliver and Lucy asleep in the car. She left the engine running to let them have a decent nap and I took out 2 hot beverages. Within 2 minutes of getting into the car next to her I had dropped my phone into my cup of tea. Despite rapid retrival it proceeded to turn itself off, apart from the camera flash which eventually burned out before the whole phone got hotter and hotter until it crackled unnervingly. I retrieved my SIM card and binned it.

So now we were faced with a decision. We are due at a family funeral tomorrow, but in light of circumstances we decided I should stay here with Oliver while Hayley pays her respects and takes Lucy with her. This seemed a reasonable plan.

The phone rang. It was my sister telling me I had left my keys at her house over the weekend. No matter, I thought. We have a spare key for my car. But could we find it? Of course not. So, even if I were a picture of health I would have a job getting Oliver to nursery in the morning. As I'm not a picture of health I suppose it matters not and we have arranged for a friend to take Oliver to and from nursery in the morning. He will just have to veg out a bit more than usual for one afternoon with his poorly Dad.

So, to recap, no mobile phone, no car, not even a home phone. Suddenly I'm a 1960s throwback. Oliver and I will spend tomorrow as an experiment in mid-20th century living. I may read him Enid Blighton and dig out some old episodes of Listen With Mother just to complete the experience.