phones and last minute panics

Talking to Rachel from Shanghai, we're idly nattering, and I tell her I've got a simcard so I can be rung up while I'm away. So she thinks now is the time to spring on me the news that it's not necessarily the simcard, but the farking phone itself... Oh faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaark - all I need last minute..

Down to the Carphone Warehouse, which is yer cheapest all over the world phone, gasps I at the slightly wary salesgirl. She starts the sales talk - which I override rather irritably. I then make her show me how to get the back on and off the bluddddy phone - virtually impossible simply vile I hate it and she says other ones are worse and the simcard has to be wrestled into place with the edge of the now removed back and when I try it over and over again it wont go in.

But I buy the wretched thing. Last time, I took one camera and a charger for the cigar charger on J's boat. This time, I've got two phones and two cameras plus all attendant chargers .. I'll bet something goes wrong. It's overkill. More lecky stuff than clothes. Not forgetting all the dental stuff associated with braces.

Why do I rush around like a headless chicken these days? I used to throw a spare pair of nix in a bag, check the passport, tickets and money (apart from not taking the credit cards to France ..) and off I go. Where did it all get so complicated? Why do I have to be able to be contacted at all seconds of the day and night?

Grumble grumble

Now drinking pastis - a rather moreish aperitif which a very subversive friend introduced me to this year .. innocuous (one 'n' or two? Do I care by now?) and a descendent of the much more exciting but now banned absinthe. Lots of bye bye phone calls (landline) - so absinthe must be making my heart grow fonder! I'm now wishing I could be here and there at the same time. How things have changed in the last couple of years...

Still, I'm packed. J will have to suffer a suitcase on his boat, but as I'll have it at the foot of my bunk in the forepeak, I shall be the one who will have to sleep in a foetal position. No doubt I'll be sharing the forepeak with spare sails, a couple of cockpit seats and all the rest of the boaty stuff not able to be put in lockers anyway. Plus ca change, hein?

Actually, I'm really looking forward to going!

And now Kate has dropped in to say goodbye - so - byeeeee!