In my mobile menu there’s a section under ‘Organiser’ called the ‘To-do list’ which I use, amongst other things, to remind me to water some trees of mine planted at the College… not had to do that too often this year.  I set reminders to make certain phone calls, to renew library books, to pack my passport if flying up to visit the kids (an internal UK flight.  For overseas I’d remember.  Anyone wanna try me?)… Sounds grand but (plug for ‘Flybe’ here) flights are often cheaper than ‘training’ it, even if you don’t book in advance.  I have reminders to ‘check-in’ online the day before I fly, reminders to rendezvous for coffee, to leave for appointments… not the Doctor kind, remember.  I don’t do the W.C. Brigade (White Coat)… because, folks, I get so engrossed in this lot, I completely lose track of time!  Even set reminders to text my ex to remind him not to forget to dig out our son’s passport whenever he flies down to me!  God, it gets complicated.  Often too, I have to reset these reminders since, being reminded of something in the morning is no guarantee I’ll remember it by the afternoon!  So my phone’s replaced my memory!  Just need to train it to remember names and faces… and especially where those faces were before they moved to the place where I now can’t place them… Happens all the time… Drawback to living in such an intimate city.

Am meandering and rambling as per…

My ‘To-do list’, however, is primarily for birthday reminders.  How ‘The Kidz’ manage to forget mine I never know.  I mean they’re all so competant with today’s technology, they should just programme it into the ‘whatever’ section of their multi-tasking phones.

My reliable old brick has ONE advantage over their iPhones, though…

It can be dropped!  All I’ll ever lose when my batterey flies oot, is the date and time.  Soooo… if Mum can do it, they can.  Maybe it’s because I’m one of those annoyingly organised people!  Yeah, there is Facebook but being eternally young an’ all, I don’t advertise my birthdate, so no reminders from that quarter.  It would actually be simpler to shunt on my birthday.  Am considering it… Have to admit though, that this year was a first.  They all remembered… though I did hear about a last minute panic getting cards in the post, chasing my address.

Of course, memory never was my strong point, whether it was remembering patients’ names in a 36 bed ward… (associating someone with a certain location, a nightmare when he/she was mobile enough to be up for meals)… or remembering dates for History… the only one that stuck was… yep… 1066.  Needless to say I failed that subject.  I do have a way to remember the alphabet part of postcodes, though.  Places I’ve lived, for instance, include Jam Doughnut (JD), Beautiful House (BH) and Juicy Fruit (JF)… This is a clean blog site!  What I do for birthday reminders, however…. yes, that is where we were… is to type in a date that’s two days preceeding a given birthday.  This is because in the very (of course) unlikely event that I forget, I’ll still have enough time to get the birthday card in the post.  Not necessarily the gift.  Bigger/awkward items do take longer than a couple of days… and Second Class is not next day delivery, kids!  I could also remind my youngest that ‘post persons’ don’t work on Sundays either!  Bless him.  But 10/10 for effort, son.  Should a birthday fall on a Sunday, using my system, I can get a card bought/posted on the Friday and it should, ‘Snail Mail’ willing, be on their breakfast table (whoops, that was eons ago)…, their lunch table… (nope, that’s unlikely too, as postmen/women are delivering well into the afternoon these days.  Not their fault of course, it’s the system and no, I’m not even going there).  Let’s just say it would be delivered by the time the average teenager surfaces!

My lot have possibly… and I have to give them the benefit of the doubt here… keyed in my actual birthday so when their phone bleeps or squeaks, it’s too late to post anything.  Then I get the texts… ‘Oh Mum, sorry, I forgot and by the way, what’s your address?’  Well the city ain’t changed even if I have moved a couple of times in the last 18 months but when I had the same address for over 3 years, it was still the same scenario.  Maybe the reason’s because they rely on their memory which probably got drunk the night before.  Hey kids, a question: D’you forget your friends birthdays as well?  They know I’m only kidding… and may actually respond to this blog to remind me they remembered this year.  Well, there’s a first time for everything and I have been around a while!

So here I am with my birthday list and of course as soon as the date has passed an exclamation mark pops up till I reset it for the following year.  By doing so, I’m poignantly reminded of my assumption that this person will still be around in twelve months time.

We take this for granted, don’t we, this gift of life?

It’s always with a flutter in my heart then, that I press ‘Edit’.  And it’s not just a consideration for the older persons on my list… You kids had better outlive me!  I love you all so very much.  So when the exclamation mark vanishes from the screen for another year, I thank The Universe for my family and friends but acknowledge a time when that birthday card will be futile; the day I’ll need the courage to press ‘Delete’.

COPYRIGHT FOR IMAGES:

All 3 photographs courtesy of Moi (i.e. Cassandra Scott)… Not the best but easier than tracking down people for permission to download their stuff!