It was time

DD has been suggesting for ages that it’s time to replace my mobile phone. My current one – an iphone 7 – is on its last legs.

It will be 90% charged one minute, then 1% the next.

I also take a lot of photos while wearing my many hats, so a good camera is pretty important.

But I clung onto the old phone because it seemed too extravagant to get a new one.

Yesterday was the last day of the financial year and DD noted that a new phone would be a tax deduction, hence not nearly as extravagant as I was catastrophising about.

So I bit the bullet and slapped down the plastic on a midnight blue iPhone 13.

It is very flash.

Do not get me started, however, on how frustrated I was when I got home and realised I need to buy a new plug because they’ve changed the connector thingy and the new cord doesn’t attach to any of my ports.

The rest of my weekend was pretty low key, aside from dropping the kids at the airport for their flight to Paris.

I went for a walk with a friend on Saturday morning, cooked my sister quesadillas for lunch, then headed up to DD’s for a glass of wine at a neighbourhood small bar.

We wandered home afterwards for homemade satay skewers with all the trimmings, then I made him watch an episode of Bridgerton.

I don’t think he’s a fan.

I may need to watch the rest of the season when he’s away on a business trip.

On Sunday we went out for brekkie, bought the mobile phone, then lazed around on the couch reading the travel sections of the Sunday newspapers and disagreeing over where we want to go on holidays in 2025 and 2026.

DD would prefer not to talk about holidays in 2025 or 2026 as he likes to live in the moment or at the very least in the current year.

When pushed he said the top locations on his bucket list were Alaska, Antarctica and Norway … oh and maybe the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

Whereas I yearn for warmer climes: Tahiti, the Cocos Keeling Islands, Rowley Shoals … and nowhere that has Donald Trump on the path to Presidency.

The disparity in our desires irked me.

My displeasure was highly unreasonable, as we have two lovely getaways booked.

I don’t understand why I can’t be satisfied with that.

I am blaming it on stress. When my stress and anxiety levels are high, I fixate on things – usually holidays or renovations or real estate.

I actually got mistaken for a bot the other day, something that happens to me occasionally because I swoop around travel and real estate websites at super-human speed.

A message came up on screen that said I was acting like a bot and requesting that I do a little humanoid test to prove I wasn’t.

As I can’t get DD to agree on holiday destinations two years in advance and I don’t need a new residence or bathroom, I am at a bit of a mentally obsessive loose end.

Being at a mentally obsessive loose end panics me slightly. My brain needs projects to keep the dopamine pumping. It likes to roll them around like mental worry beads to soothe itself.

In happier news, the kids have arrived safely in Paris. They have been tasked with sending the occasional proof of life pic. The eldest sent me a shot of the Eiffel Tower last night, which isn’t exactly proof of life in terms of seeing their faces, but was still exciting to receive.