Thursday night has zoomed round again. I honestly don't know how the weeks disappear so fast. I'm sure that when I was a child there were *literally* two years in between Christmases! The months just seemed to dawdle by like a tortoise; but now - BOY - they zoom like Linford Christie. If I live to be 80, a week will be a year. Actually, perhaps that's why old people lose their sense of time perception and elderly relatives complain that family haven't called them in weeks - in reality, it's probably only been a few hours since they hung up the phone..... I don't think I want to grow old. The benefits don't look overly appealing at the moment. Added to this my self-imposed 'gadget embargo' that will come into fruition on my 55th birthday whereby I will no longer be able to purchase any electrical equipment that comes with a remote control, needs connecting to a wireless network or can 'quote' make my life easier. I will have to have a mad splurge in my 54th year as that's it - game over. The amount of 'older customers' we have that can't even plug in a fucking charger correctly annoys the living shit out of me. FFS - here's a rule of thumb for you; if you can't read the instructions without a hand-held magnifying glass, or glasses as powerful as the Hubble telescope put the product back on the poxy shelf - it's never going to end happily!!
I will not be a burden to my children. I will want them to come round on Sunday to drink red wine, eat a mahoosive roast dinner and leave happy, full of carbohydrates and wind. I don't want them to spend all afternoon with the dust behind the TV cabinet trying to retune my set-top box.
I saw my Mum struggle with her first computer. Trying to levitate the mouse in mid air whilst simulaneously looking gormless as nothing happens on the screen. I even had to carry out an emergency house call one time as she couldn't access her email. No matter how may times she entered her password, it just wouldn't accept it. Turns out, that she hadn't even clicked on the box next to where she was supposed to enter her password, so the letters weren't even appearing in the password box. See? Do you feel my frustration? I'm sure you have your own examples.
Of course, my theory could come unstuck as when I retire, I want to circumnavigate Oz in a Camper van (or Glamper Van - as in Glamerous Camping). Having had a squizz in the window of some of the hired camper vans that the students choose, though, some of these vans look like they've been tested by Jeremy Clarkson for Top Gear and whilst they have been pushed over the cliffs at Beachy Head, the dents give the van 'character' and it plods off again for it's 20th trip across the Nullabor. I looked in the window of one and I swear to goodness the mattress had become an intelligent lifeform; it was certainly moving of it's own accord. Yeuch! Not for me!
My 'Glamper' would be blinged to the max; camper than Alan Carr - actually, that's what I would call it - Alan. I would have a satellite dish on the top the size of those at Jodrill Bank just to ensure I kept abreast with Eastenders (of course, this would be fully installed, road tested and batteries changed in the remote PRIOR to my 55th birthday!). I like the look of the ones where the sides can slide out to provide extra living space; even better for the days when I'm suffering for water retention and Ralph would struggle to walk through the kitchen / diner due to my over-inflated cankles.
However I'm not sure how our plan will take shape if we have new technological wizzardry to get to grips with prior to our trip. It is my plan to change our names by Deed Poll the week before the trip; we would thereafter be known as 'Barb and Hal'. We would have a sign on the back of our Camper with our names, the VHF channel we were inhabited on the radio, should you wish to converse and break the monotony of hours of looking at our break lights, and the ubiquitous 'Honk if you're horny'. This is my ultimate bucket list. I think if one of us croaks prior to retirement, the other should continue with their ashes strapped to the passenger seat. If there was somewhere particularly lovely that they came across, they could leave a bit of their loved one there. How lovely would that be? No grave to visit, just little bits of you left all over the country to blow about in the wind on a summers day. I quite like that idea - almost makes me want to die first! :)
That is the ultimate exercise in trust though - trusting the remaining partner to choose wisely and not trip on the way back from the drop toilet under the shadow of darkness and dust you over a cane toad. Mind you, imagine that human cremated remains are quite toxic, so that could actually be the answer to Australia's Cane Toad epidemic. Donate the ashes of Grandpa Bob and help Australia wipe out a menace.
I don't know what the kids would think of our plan or how long we could manage on the open road withour killing each other, or Ralph spending the night sleeping in the upturned tinnie that we would strap to the roof of Alan after yet another row. I wonder if you can be forceably asked to leave a caravan park? That'll be on my bucket list of things to do whilst Glamping Oz; get evicted from a Big 4 caravan park. I'm sure I could do it if we tried hard enough.
At least it's a good excuse for not being around to babysit any potential grandchildren. Unless we could have them for an evening and take off with them into the sunset like a denture advert Bonnie and Clyde, only to return our grandchild 6 months later, missing out on a term of schooling, but with the new found ability to belch along to a variety of showtunes as well as demonstrating the abillity to swear at fellow roadusers in a miriad of colourful adjectives. Who says money can't buy a decent education?
