I’m still at Mak and Fern’s house and will be until early afternoon tomorrow. Today has flown by, and I used the very few hours that I am willing to leave the dogs alone, doing a new client booking visit followed by an unsuccessful trip to
Joe’s free (ish) sofa
try to fit Joe’s new (free, second hand) sofa and arm chair into the Scenic with the seats removed. Even the chair on its own wouldn’t fit because of its high back and wooden frame. Had to arrange for a man with a van to collect and deliver the suite tomorrow, so the free sofa/chair combo now costs £37, which I guess isn’t too bad. Anyway, suffice to say that there weren’t enough dog free hours in the day to get Wolfie (the van) sorted, so I am hoping to do that on Tuesday morning before heading back to the site. Indeed, I am looking forward to a purge and clean up of my very small space; letting go of unnecessary Stuff always enhances my sense of well-being.
I upgraded my mobile package today. I tend to buy my own phones as-and-when they are needed and just have a rolling monthly contract with Virgin, which has for a long time been unlimited calls and texts, plus 1GB, for the princely sum of £6/month. Whilst living in a house with Wi-Fi, that’s always been sufficient for my needs, but I had used almost 80% of my meagre internet allowance in the first half of January (and I didn’t leave home until the 4th), so I quickly realised the package wouldn’t support this lifestyle. I need internet access at all times, as I rely on it entirely for work. We use a database where all client details are held and all work is scheduled, and without which I would turn into a disorganised, gibbering wreck. So I upgraded to an entirely unlimited package, for £14/month, which kicks in on Tuesday. I do get unlimited Wi-Fi on the Caravan Club site, but only for one device, so I tend to use that on my laptop. I think that’s internet access sorted for the time being. Will let you know.
Ah yes! The digital age! I noted that you have books, music etc all digitally recorded, which we haven’t, of course. I had been wondering about books, as our family are notorious for overflowing bookcases, mostly reference as fare as Dad and I, and Janet and Rachel are concerned. In some cases a book comes into the “beautiful” rather than “useful” category. Perhaps we are all dependent on something, however much we may wish to be free!
I used to be very much a hard copy book lover, and though I played with kindle for a few years I was never near to a digital convert until Imogen hooked me up with Audible. I suddenly realised that I could consume books at a much faster rate… while walking, or washing dishes, or indeed while doing anything or nothing, so long as I had a laptop or mobile phone to hand. This suited my lifestyle completely, and books went from being something that I dawdled through at a painfully slow pace in those few moments between falling into bed and sleep, to something that I was able to devour at a phenomenal rate. Like you, almost all my reading is non-fiction or creative non-fiction. Information. Expansion. Music was just a space thing for the van. I still favour CDs, but it made sense to play music from my laptop and so I imported all of my CDs onto iTunes. Now I have access to it all without having to carry the CDs with me, and from there it was a small step to getting rid of most of the CDs to charity. I kept my very favourites to play in the CD player on journeys.