Incommunicado

I have mentioned recently the sad demise of my trusty little pocket Canon Powershot, which has meant that I've been using my mobile phone to take photos this past week.

Today I nipped out to buy a few bits and pieces in the nearest shop, and on impulse picked up a bottle of red wine as well. I packed everything into my nice 'no-plastic-carriers-for-me-thanks' hessian shopping bag, which I placed carefully on the floor while I paid. It toppled over in slow motion and the bottle hit the floor - not with any great force, but it nevertheless cracked clean in two and wine started gushing from the bottom of the bag. Apart from making a very big mess all over the place and causing rather a tailback at the till, no real damage seemed to have been done. The nice lady in the shop let me take a replacement bottle at no charge; she wiped and re-packed all my shopping in plastic carriers and gave me another in which to take home my dripping bag.

And guess what was at the bottom of the sodden bag all the while? Yep, mobile phone! By the time I reached home and realised this, it was making a curious hissing noise. I haven't had it very long and I couldn't even remember how to take the battery out! Needless to say, it is not feeling up to very much at the moment. I dropped one its predecessors in the bath once and, after 48 hours drying out, it was fine. So I'm hoping that this one will be feeling well enough to get back to work soon, once the hangover has worn off.

In the meantime, I am not only without my phone, but without my camera, my alarm clock, my phonebook and my calendar!

How dependent we are on gadgetry these days . . .