write.as/jonbeckett

I don’t go back to work until Thursday, and am trying to keep well away from my work phone, which sits in the pocket of my backpack, just across the room from me. I know most of my co-workers return today. It feels like I’m dipping a toe into the new year – inching my way in, slowly and quietly.

This morning has been busy so far – taking parcels to the post office, and old books to the charity shop. The new mobile phone and camera have both arrived – both sitting on the desk charging as I write this.

The phone is a Nokia 3310 3G. It turns out the first version, released in spring of last year, was 2G only – and not many carriers issue 2G SIM cards any more – getting the slightly more expensive newer version means I can use my current SIM, and not have the hassle of transferring the number.

The camera is a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W800. Very much a budget pocket camera, but good enough. Far too many people fail to realise that framing and lighting make good photos – not good cameras. While at a friend’s house for New Years, they ran around taking photos with an old Polaroid camera, the results of which were stuck to the fridge in their kitchen – the photos were wonderful, and could only be replicated digitally by applying all manner of filters to simulate the chemical processes. You know what? The real photos looked much better than anything I’ve seen on Instagram.

My plans for the rest of today are non-existent. We tidied the house up yesterday, so there really aren’t any chores to get on with either (other than washing clothes – there arealways clothes to wash). You never know – I might even read a book!

Most people will be waking up this morning to a brand new year. I on the other hand never really went to bed. I can now proudly state that I have passed the parenting milestone known as “staying up all night with your teenager after they drink themselves to a standstill at a party”.

I’m not going to go into details, because she’s horrified enough as it is – suffice to say I stayed up all night, she was very, very ill, and this morning she is remarkably ok. She now has one hell of a story to tell – a right of passage in a way. I’m just thankful she did it at a party we were at, and not among strangers in a bar.

Quite how I managed to get her home is something of a miracle. I spirited her out of the party through a side door, and then slowly – very slowly – made our way home. We were passed by several groups of revelers along the way – each of them stopping to offer help. She remembers none of it.

It’s probably worth noting that the evening went off the rails well after midnight – we had all cheered in the new year as the radio stations counted down, and raised a glass together. We had spent a wonderful evening in the company of great friends, shared funny stories, ate fantastic food, and brought in the new year with smiles and laughter.

Quite how I’m going to make it through today is another question entirely – we have invited most of the people from the party to our house for the afternoon – an attempt to eat everything left from Christmas, and to see those that couldn’t make it last night.

I’m guessing Miss 17 will hear many, many stories from our friends about their first time drinking too much. As I made my way home last night, everybody that stopped to help laughed and commented “I remember doing that – I’ve been there – got the t-shirt”.

I’m guessing that will be the t-shirt with carrot chunks down it…

I’ve never quite understood the mania that some people experience at the end of each year – setting out either a list of the things they achieved over the past twelve months, or stacking up a series of goals they would like to achieve in the next twelve. I’m not questioning them – if they’re happy doing it, they’re not harming anybody. I’m just expressing my bewilderment at it all.

I tend to trudge from each day, week, month, or year to the next, discovering what’s happening as I get there. Invariably I have no grand plan, no secret hopes, and no massive ambitions, beyond keeping a roof over our head, remaining relatively happy, and remaining somewhat healthy.

Of course there are some things I would like to change – both about myself, and my situation, but none of them are earth-shatteringly difficult or important in the grand scheme of things. Would I like to lose some weight? Yes. Is it going to happen? Probably, if I stop eating rubbish and actually get out running again. Would I like to travel a bit less with work? Yes. Is it going to happen? No – if anything, this year will see me travel more than ever before. Would I like to make more friends? Definitely. Is it going to happen? Probably not, unless via the internet – given the lack of time I typically have to spend with anybody.

All of the things mentioned above are to do with me. There’s probably only one thing I would like to change about anybody else. I would like people in general to become a bit more accountable instead of constantly wining about things. I know, I know – we all complain from time to time, but as I’ve said before – I tend to just keep plodding forwards. Some people seem to like standing still – sitting even – and complaining endlessly.

Anyway.

We’ve been invited out for a few drinks tonight. A friend has invited us to their house to welcome the new year together. We’re taking some of our leftover drink, some leftover snacks, and will trudge round to their house in the rain to begin working steadily towards a rather impressive hangover. If I’m still compus mentis when we arrive home in the early hours, I promise to send a few “Happy New Year” messages.

Giving up the smartphone may end up being a blessing in disguise – because I’ve become incredibly lazy over the last few years – just allowing Google to upload every photo I take into the cloud, and sharing one or two via Instagram to an army of acquaintances – heavily tagged for no apparent reason other than to attract enough likes to annoy people that chase traffic.

I did photography at college. When people exclaim “your photos always look so good”, I typically counter with “you didn’t see the twenty I threw away”, or “I have no excuses – I learned how to take passable photos at college – and trust me, these are not passable at all”.

It strikes me that I’ve spent rather too long producing perfectly filtered little square photos, and plastering them all over the social internet. What does it gain me? Nothing – apart from the loss of the originals, which were in all likelihood better.

I ordered a camera this morning. A tiny little camera that will fit in my pocket. I had planned on resurrecting one of the old digital cameras at home, but discovered they were broken. A few minutes looking around on Amazon helped me find something small and reasonably priced, which will become a permanent fixture in my pocket in the weeks and months to come.

Here’s to the future, and perhaps a few more thoughtful photos, rather than pictures of food, drinks, and railway station platforms.

While walking between the lounge and kitchen this morning, wondering if to empty the washing machine next, or empty the dishwasher, there was a thump thump thump at the front door. “Ah, that will be the Nokia 3310”, I thought. By the time I got to the door Miss 12 had appeared from thin air, and got to the front door before me.

As the door swung open we were not greeted by a delivery person holding a small cardboard box. My gaze swept down to the smiling face of the little boy that lives across the road.

“Can you come out to play football?”

This question was obviously aimed at Miss 12 – not at me – or at least I don’tthink it was aimed at me. I smiled as Miss 12 ran off in search of the requisite clothes to play football. I think if we let her play in the Unicorn onesie she was wearing, she would.

“She’ll be out in a minute”

As the door closed behind me, the cogs started turning at the back of my admittedly tiny little mind, and I logged into Amazon. The website confidently informed me that my order would be delivered between the 2nd and 8th of January. I marched into the lounge to inform my other half how untrustworthy and rubbish Amazon were.

“I bet you didn’t check the Express Delivery box.”

“What’s that?”

A minute later she stood alongside me, told me to click here, then there, then scroll…

“Oh. That.”

So yes – I won’t be getting the phone for another few days. And apparently my other half knows everything, and I’m the one that’s a bit rubbish – not Amazon. Sorry Amazon.

We all knew this was going to happen, didn’t we.

During the autumn I got seduced by the idea of a Bullet Journal, and spent several months writing neat little tick lists. For the first week or so I even took care over the presentation of each page, and started charting ridiculous things like waking times, mealtimes, and so on in little charts spread throughout the pages. Yeah. I stopped doing that pretty quickly.

Fast forward three months, and the Bullet Journal had become a very expensive hand-written version of a Filofax. It occurred to me that the only difference between the two was the Bullet Journal forced me to write future events in a month or year log and then migrate them forwards, rather than write them in the correct place to start with.

I suppose a huge part of this is familiarity too. I’ve been using a Filofax for a very long time – and while I can see that Bullet Journals have some benefits, I’m also inherently lazy – so having a printed book with the dates already in it wins for me.

This is the part where everybody with a Bullet Journal calls me an idiot, everybody with a Filofax says “told you so”, and everybody else says “why aren’t you using Google Calendar?”

Remember that thought about returning to a simple mobile phone, instead of a smart-phone? That. I’m still thinking about it. While I have no doubt friends will laugh at my decision to walk away from the social idiocy, I’m also looking forward to making a start on all the books I’ve been meaning to read for the last several years, but put to one side while I just checked Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Wordpress, Flickr, and so on.

While browsing Twitter late last night I happened upon an acquaintance wondering how some people generate so many comments on their blogs, and scrolled through her recent “tweets”. Nearly every thought that had passed through her head in the previous 48 hours had become a tweet – no wonder people were keeping the hell away from her. The scene formed in my head that we’ve all witnessed – where you visit a bar or a coffee shop, and somebody across the room likes the sound of their own voice a bit too much.

It made me think though – about this whole blogging lark – about how often I post.

I invariably post once a day, remarking about a forgettable moment, something that crossed my mind, or whatever else seemed worthy of a few words. Occasionally I post more than once – like today – mainly because I have nothing else to be getting on with. While I know many people post far more often than me, I’m wondering about slowing down even more.

You see, I don’t have a tremendously exciting life. There are only so many days filled with the same chores everybody else has, or the work I can’t write about, that can be recorded in any sort of interesting manner. Given this relative scarcity of exciting thoughts, ideas, or stories to tell, I’m considering an earth shattering idea – only posting when I have something worth posting about.

I know, I know. It’s a pretty earth-shattering concept. It’s going to be difficult – sitting on my hands when I might take a photo of a cup of coffee, or tell you about the train platform I happen to be standing on, but I think I can do it.

Oh, and in other news, I just ordered a Nokia 3310.

I’ve never really felt like I “fitted in” anywhere. Throughout college I was not one of the popular crowd that hung out together, and through my twenty-something years I never had the circle of friends that went to bars and clubs.

Here’s the thing. Somewhere along the way the people I would have been too nervous to talk to in those formative years have started following the words and pictures I post.

It feels like being noticed, in a quiet way. I spend much of my time online contributing, but mostly slipping under everybody’s radar. Being noticed is kind of an alien experience – it’s like I’ve been taken by the hand by some of the in-crowd, and dragged across the bar to meet their friends.

It is late afternoon on Boxing Day, and the children are still playing a marathon board game called “The Battle for Hogwarts” in the lounge with my other half. It’s been going on all day – I played for the first couple of hours – they seem to be in for the long haul. I was worried about buying it as a “family game” because it was quite expensive, but seriously – if they get this many hours fun out of it on a regular basis, it will be money well spent.

I’m not entirely sure why, but I’ve been ridiculously tired for the last couple of days. I’m not sure if it’s the alcohol intake, the endless supply of rich food, or just falling apart after the seemingly endless struggle with obligation and expectation in the run-up to Christmas.

Christmas has been good though. Once we arrived at Christmas Eve afternoon, everything had been done, and everybody relaxed into it. The children were in bed by perhaps 11pm, and didn’t get up until after 7am. We opened presents, had breakfast, the in-laws arrived, we opened more presents, had a drink, and so on. Christmas kind of runs on rails once you let it.

We went out for lunch on Christmas Day – something we have done for the last few years. Yes, it’s quite expensive, but it also makes the day a lot easier. Investing money in the day rather than presents was kind of a theme this year – we’ve all done Christmases in the past where you get to the end, and need another holiday.

I think perhaps we spent less in material terms this year than we have for the last decade. We still had a lot of things for the children to open, but nothing outrageously expensive. No phones, laptops, or video games this year. We did manage to find some of the singing games for the Nintendo Wii, which caused all sorts of hilarity late last night. I wonder what the neighbors thought of the late evening rendition of YMCA coming from the upstairs bedroom of our house ?

We realised on Christmas Eve that we have had the children for 10 years this year – this was their tenth Christmas with us. In a way it was nice that wedidn’t do anything special to mark the occasion – just spending time together for a few days has been enough.

I’m still thinking about what to do with the whole social internet thing. I posted a photo to Instagram earlier, and thought “do I really need to be doing this?”. It all seems so pointless – like we’re generating noise much of the time. Maybe it would do me good to step away for a few months and just post to the blog – nothing else.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special, along with all the other things I’ve completely missed so far.

Our youngest just received a phonecall from Santa en-route. He got our postcode wrong. We heard the shouted conversation on the upstairs landing, and the thundering of feet as she rushed to tell us.

The image of her bursting into the lounge to tell us that she had been right to keep her mobile phone with her all evening will stay with me forever.

She believes so strongly you begin to question yourself – even though you’re a player in the story.

In other news, we just made my parents evening.