Expansion

Hallett's Mountain recently got bigger.
Click on the picture.

Greener Grass

Mountaineers, I have to confess that I have strayed.
I have been tempted by smooth firm curves and I am ashamed to say that I have been found wanting.
A friend recently mused that there is a gene predisposing men to impulsive behaviour. A gene that makes them feel that unseemly conduct to which they might otherwise eschew, especially when triggered by libation, is permissible. But I don’t really know about that.
I am quite prepared to own my behaviour. It was my eye that wandered, and I don’t pretend that it can be offloaded from conscience by accidents of biology.

It’s the mega pixies you see. Those and the giggle bytes….
Colleagues have been shiny eyed in devotion to small plastic communicators. They have unsettled my own train of thought.

A phone that has served me well for some years was found sadly lacking.
Oh it makes calls and takes all kinds of messages. It stores every nodding acquaintance and many good friends. It takes passable pictures in a strong light. It smurfs the interwebby thing but…but… well I guess an over familiarity has led me to take it for granted.

And then yesterday I was left alone for too long in the supermarket. She Of The Townhouse was late to Aisle 13 and the siren song drew me mesmerised over to the shiny new phones.
Phones whispering, “stroke me….. let me mp3 in your ear…..feel my trembling vibration…..”
Before I could help myself I had parted with hard earned credit and was scurrying back to Hallett’s Mountain with my guilty purchase.

But you know what? The next day I awoke full of remorse.
The experience you see had not been all I had imagined. The touch screen was a hideous disappointment, false plastic hiding inadequate silicon. I found its earlier siren a chirruping irritation in very short order. Even as I held it in my hand I reflected on the fact that what I had left behind was where my heart truly lay. I longed for the buttons that I know so well.

So this morning I withdrew my chip from the false promise and showed it the way home. I also palmed the new phone back off on the supermarket. Reviling its inadequacies to the pimply face youth who sold it to me, I demanded a refund.

I feel I have learned a lesson.