Sorry, you’ve been cut off
With his favourite chainsaw locked mid-way in the bough of a tree, Philip howard makes the mistake of turning on his phone and its steady stream of life’s inanities
The May bank holiday weekend found me sat alone among the bluebells on a wooded bank overlooking Cherry Dene pond. There, I contemplated life, conscious of the background splattering of the waterfall and birdsong as the pale sun vainly attempted to evaporate the rivulets of sweat pouring down my neck. Actually, strictly speaking, most of the contemplation was concerning just how I could extract my chainsaw from the heart of a 200-year-old oak tree. It stood proudly upright like a modern-day orange and white excalibur, stuck in a vice-like grip, pinned by a large, inexpertly cut creaking limb – what the cutters in the trade refer to as “a widow maker”.
I switched my phone on debating whether to summon help. 12.32. My phone buzzed. Twelve messages. eight of them are spam. “election launch reminder”. Would I like to join leafletters at the bandstand in Penrith’s Cornmarket at 2pm? No. Another buzz. “Do you want my spare ticket for the Carlisle v Newport game 3pm this afternoon?” Definitely not. Then two more about boiler repairs. I switched the phone off. I heard two high-pitched mewing noises and noticed two buzzards soaring over the wood.
I popped back home and picked up another chainsaw and a mallet with some wedges. I returned with all the extraction paraphernalia together with my lunch, which I ate by the lake watching two dippers picking at some moss on the top of the waterfall. A prosperous cock pheasant strutted around in a mass of dying daffodils. I switched the phone back on. A plethora of buzzes and pings. News feeds… election update... Brexit update... The Donald’s 100 days, the fat Korean boy has fired another dud missile… doom, gloom, despair.
Wedding drama’s via my nephew, who is getting married mid May. My children still haven’t replied. My sister’s new shoes don’t fit. A glamorous picture of The Media Queen appears on Whatsapp. She is imprisoned on a yacht in Antigua harbour with a case of white wine enduring the fifth day of a six-day Jewish wedding. She has bumped into my pal, Lyster, in the Antigua yacht club. he lives in Devon and plainly must be lost if he’s in english harbour. A rabbi has just been flown over from Miami. My daughter needs some money. My son needs the house for his birthday. Six more business emails. I switch the phone off and spend the next two hours recovering the saw, logging and cleaning up the neglected copse.
having run out of both energy and, more significantly, petrol I staggered back to my pile of kit for a water and tea break. I must have sat for about 20 minutes. The cock pheasant, emboldened by the lack of chainsaw noise, had moved to where I had lunched and was pecking away at my detritus. A robin was making a hell of a racket where I had been cutting and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, two pink-footed geese wheeled into the pond, cackling away at the thought of a romantic little rendezvous, feet outstretched for landing, before realising too late they were not alone and clumsily, with wings flapping desperately as in slow motion, they veered and honked and turned in alarm and left.
I switched on the phone again. More buzzes, more pings, more requests, more appointments, the stream of life’s inanities continued to flow. Then the noise of a grouse calling, surely a freak of nature in lowland Cumbria. I realise it is my ridiculous ringtone. The miracle of communication means Antigua’s english harbour and Cherry Dene pond appear to be connected. I heard about the rich and the famous, the big boats and high rollers doing deals. It sounds all so exciting and glamorous, I replied. “It’s not,” she answered. “It’s busy, it’s vibrant, it’s life but it’s soon boring and dull and so shallow. everybody is on their third or fourth marriage and there are so many beautiful young women hanging on to the arms of older men as if their financial lives depend on it – which they do. I wish I was with you.”
And I would not have swapped my place that day for anywhere else.
Then the noise of a grouse calling, surely a freak of nature in lowland Cumbria, until I realise it is my ridiculous ringtone