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Or rather, I should say, my bloody awful mobile phone, because that’s what they’re called here in the UK.

But what are you doing in the UK, I hear you all cry. We thought you were in your new apartment in Rotterdam.

It’s a long story, but basically, a few weeks ago I moved into our new house in the UK just before I cat-and-Killer-Rabbit sat for Baby Sister. Now, when I say new house, I mean that Oh Patient One and I inherited a share in this house earlier in the year when my dear mother-in-law passed away (yeah, 2008 has been a bad year for our family). We’d already decided that we needed a UK base, so we proceeded to buy out Oh Patient One’s siblings and live here. It’s full of good memories, convenient for London, so I can see Baby Sister, and access to the main routes for my trips to see my mum (Super Mum) and besides, trying to sell it in the current economic market wouldn’t have been viable. In the meantime, Oh Patient One needs to stay in Rotterdam to complete his contract, which is why we moved to a smaller apartment over there in the first place.

Anyways, of course I’ve encountered swathes of British Red Tape, which makes a change from Dutch Red Tape (the only difference being that I can do the British Red Tape in English, instead of struggling with my terrible Dutch). And soon I will tell you all about it, but let’s just say that I seem to be having problems with my communications devices here, as well as in Rotterdam, so why would I expect my new mobile phone to be any different? Silly, silly moi.

See, although I bought a well-known brand (pay as you go because, of course, I’ve been away from the UK for thirteen years and have no credit rating and am therefore not a real person yet), from a well-known supermarket, I am pretty certain that this mobile phone’s mission in its non-life is to torture me.

When I lock the keypad, it takes about ten gazillion hours (feels like) to unlock it, despite using the correct keypad combination. When I get text messages and hit the button for “read message” it takes me to the calendar. Or to some odd application called coin flipping. When I hit the “menu” button it takes me to the calender or to coin flipping, too, or sometimes it asks me if I want to open the notepad. No! I just want to read my message! And when I try to access my contacts so I can make a call, it tries to connect me to the internet. And when I hit the “ring” button to actually talk to anybody it asks me if I want to book a train ticket to Venus. No, no, not really. It just resets the calendar to 15 January 2007, instead (why? why?).

So you know what this means, don’t you? I am going to have to take the bloody awful mobile phone back to the well-known supermarket and see if I can get a refund. There’s bound to be Trouble. Wish me luck!

Or maybe I’ll save myself the ensuing frustration that is sure to happen, buy another new phone, install my sim card into it (so I can keep the same number, etc), and have a ritual burning of the bloody awful mobile phone in the back yard, while dancing gleefully around it drinking Shiraz.

Back next time with more connectivity woes (yes, of course I had trouble with the house phone and the Internet!).

Michelle, fuming from the ears with frustration!

PS. My bloody awful mobile phone just buzzed. I have a message from No-Longer-Teenager-No #1, so wish me luck on ever being able to get to it without accidentally resetting the calendar. Again.