Friday 27 February 2009

Eclipse plumage

God bless its electrical soul
The postman's supposed to ring twice, right?

Well, round where I live they don't even bother ringing. It's often a wonder that you get any letters at all. After coming back from an early morning Scrubs visit I waited in like a plum for the postman to deliver my new phone. I was kinda desperate because part of my life had regressed to the pre-seventies. My current phone had quit on me and I needed to make some calls, answer some important football texts and generally feel safe in the knowledge that I had my mobile close at hand.

Not to be. The delivery cut off time of 1pm had been and gone. I checked my letterbox and to my horror there was one of those 'I tried to deliver' notes stuffed through the door. The geezer hadn't even bothered to ring the doorbell. Of course, I was straight onto the Royal Mail customer complaints who added insult to injury by saying that the collection office had just closed for the day!

Then I checked myself. I thought, 'hey, you've got two legs, you're still breathing and you're not in a coma'. That was a great leveller. Plus, it meant that I would have no one bugging me for the duration of me being flightless - yeah, that's it! Being phoneless is like being flightless. I'm currently in eclipse plumage!

I had no alarm this morning (that's how much I rely on my phone!) but incredibly, I woke myself up at 6am and half-an-hour later I was watching hundreds of squawking Rose-ringed Parakeets fly over my head in the pre-dawn light at The Scrubs. I was joined by fellow Scrubber, Roy Nuttall. Together we walked the circuit and managed 4 Stonechat for our trouble.

Needless to say, I also didn't receive the sack load of letters from the kids at the local school, but I did get an email from the organisors of the Birdfair at Rutland, inviting me to give a talk on Urban Birding. So if you're not up to much over the second last weekend of August, come down and check me out.

Now it's time for me to sit back and drift away whilst Herbie Hancock tinkles the ivories on the wonderful jazz funky tune, Chameleon.

5 comments:

Goosey said...

We never have the phone switched on a walk anywhere, I like the feeling of being untouchable and out of contact for a while

The Urban Birder said...

I envy you.

Being a complete (well almost complete) urbanite having a mobile is part of the deal!

Wild Freckle said...

Its almost a blessing that phone coverage is rubbish up here - not good when you breakdown in the middle of a glen! How did we cope before mobile phones?

holdingmoments said...

Sounds like my postman, shove a card through the door, then run; even when I'm in :|
I have my mobile on vibrate when I'm out, probably why I always miss calls :)

Fraser Simpson said...

I've had this too while I've been waiting for a delivery. The card should really read "couldn't be bothered ringing the bell". Royal Mail are hopelessly bad!