Preparation.............

Preparations are still afoot for tomorrow.

Honestly, I bet the Normandy landings didn't take as much logistical planning as my solo trip to London.

I've been to Tesco and bought my lunch, as well as a new mobile phone. Who would have thought you could buy a mobile phone for £7.97, taking into account the free £10 top up!!!!!!!!!
OK so it's basic. I can make and receive phone calls and texts and that's about it.

No camera
No video
No interweb
No interminable selection of irritating ring tones
No emails
No 37 different menus with 168 sub-menus

BUT

It does have a built-in flashlight.

How fantastically wonderful is THAT?!

So unlike my last phone, which required a PhD in communications technology just to switch the damn thing on, let alone actually use it, this new little basic number is refreshingly simple to use and does what it says on the tin.

I'm going to play with it on the train journey to familiarise myself with all the buttons, of which there are few.

On
Off
Numbers
Letters

That's it.

IT'S BRILLIANT!

For all of five minutes I debated buying a magazine from the extensive range in Tesco, in case I got fed up playing with my new phone (as if!) and needed entertainment on the journey, but the magazine racks seemed to stretch to infinity and beyond and I lost the will to live.

• Stack after stack of magazines devoted to the vacuous lives and mind-numbingly boring antics of assorted 'slebs'
• A humongous amount of 'women's interest' magazines majoring on how to lose 5 stone in 2 weeks, or knit a computer monitor cover, or cook a 5 course meal for 4 people with £1.87.........
• Real life story magazines with features on how this woman's brother ate her dog, or married her parrot, or was in a coma for 24 years following his abduction by aliens...

Then there's the specialist publications which cater for every form of leisure pursuit/obsession, from the relatively normal and benign to the frankly bizarre and slightly worrying.

I was particularly fascinated by the enormous number of publications devoted to fishing and my attention was inexorably drawn to the intriguingly titled 'Total Carp'.

Misprint or not........you decide. And just in case you think I'm making it up...



Right, I'm off to select an outfit for tomorrow. Must be comfortable but effortlessly stylish. Small dog has started sniggering already.........