LOVING MY CITY BREAK BUT I STILL CAN’T BEEP

Rediscovering the joys of getting away from it all for a bit and trying to get to grips with scanning technology needed to book in to do anything these days

have made a discovery. You say: “Oh, Rab, do tell! That sounds right exciting!”

Oh, it is. It is. And it is this: it is good to go away and stay somewhere else from time to time. I believe the scientific term is a “holiday”.

I’m getting a message in my earpiece: “Everybody knows that, Rab.” They do? Well, it was news to me. Or perhaps I’d just forgotten it.

It wasn’t a proper holiday, of course. Just a weekend in the city.

But it was nice to wake up in a different house, one that was all clean and everything.

How do other people do it? Why aren’t their houses full of dead insects and shifting dunes of muck like mine?

I say “house” but I was in a suburban garden annexe.

Oh, what bliss to sit outside in the morning with my breakfast pie, and hear nothing but birds.

Same in the evening, a time when I enjoy tramping round the suburbs. Quiet.

After the noise of the country.

When I got home, there was the usual hammering, drilling, whining and droning. It never stops.

The sound of the country. It’s quite uncanny.

I felt guilty leaving my friendly wee robin for a couple of days. As previously revealed exclusively in this magazine, he likes to come down and watch me do my morning exercises.

Maybe I should have got in a robin-sitter to stand in for me.

But he seemed none the worse when I returned. Just sat on his usual branch, fluffed himself up and watched the show.

Here’s another thing I’ve discovered: I cannot get anything to beep.

I’d an inkling of this before during my three-hour career

at John Lewis when invited to scan something during my “training”.

No business resulted. Didn’t matter how I held the scanner: close, distant, vertical, horizontal. Then the trainer did it – and it beeped right away.

Same with the “track and trace” app on my portable telephone.

I’d never had occasion to use this before. Again, it involves holding a device against a code and waiting for it to beep.

Easy for you to do.

At the museum, the lady had to take my phone off me and do it.

Apart from anything else, I’d been holding it the wrong way round.

That must be why my

selfies never come out. I just get pictures of foliage or buildings.

When I went into a pub to watch the football, the

barman also had to take my phone off me and do the beeping.

Ah well, it isn’t given to all of us to beep.

Here’s another thing I discovered: having takeaway food delivered takes ages.

It didn’t help that the wifi wasn’t good in my little garden shed.

I started trying to order at the back of six, and it was nearly nine before my grub arrived.

I’d pooh-poohed one place that said it would take 90 minutes then, an hour later, had to opt for another place that also took 90 minutes.

By the time the meal arrived, I’d eaten so many shortbread biscuits and slices of toast, I wasn’t really hungry any more.

Still, this was yet another discovery in one weekend.

It gave me plenty of food for thought.

WHEN I WENT INTO A PUB, THE BARMAN ALSO HAD TO TAKE MY PHONE OFF ME AND DO THE BEEPING

Rab enjoyed his city break