Isn't that what the road to hell is paved with?
I swear my intentions were good.
If you read my previous episode you will know that Ma had been plagued with blooming nuisance calls...and one particularly scary one for her.
This does my box in. I am constantly trying to make life easier for her...not for any altruistic reasons, but I know if Ma is content them I am too.
I am sure that you all know what an independent old baggage she is...and how she hates having to rely on anyone...I guess you also know where I get my bloody minded stubbornness too...I inherited it from her.
I regaled you with tales of how I had got her a newer, more modern phone. One that would block these nuisance calls...with a light up display, with big buttons...a bells and whistles jobby.
She said she was too old to get used to something new...I did not believe it...but I did believe that if she sets her mind against something, then she won't have it.
Today it was a visit to the Doctors for her yearly overhaul and blood tests.
I had taken the brand new shiny phone up to her house on Friday.
I plonked it on top of the piano and told her that I would set it up today and then show her how to use it.
Well, we got drowned going to the docs as the Heavens opened and dumped several bucket of tepid water on us just as we left the house.
When we got back Ma wasn't in the best of moods....her bum was wet from sitting for half an hour on a wheelchair seat that had copped a lot of this rainwater.
I tried to coddle her along by suggesting that I would set up the phone and then go for a fish and chip dinner for her.
When I say 'set up the phone' it was nothing really...just disconnecting the old one and plugging the newer model in. I had programmed most of her numbers in at my house.
I had set up speed dial....all the numbers she uses most were on there and I showed her how easy this was. Just press number 1 and it dials me...you know the drill.
What could be easier...? No keying in the numbers, a four year old could do it.
I let her have a go and she phoned my daughter with ease.
I showed her some of the other functions too, but not too many as I feared it might just spook her.
So what went wrong?
I am not sure...but Himself rang her this evening and she did not pick up....I rang her twice a little later. She still did not pick up.
I rang her next door neighbour and asked her to give Ma a knock...explaining that I had set up a new phone today and she wasn't picking up.(I though the phone might be unplugged or ...lost its charge...or that it was not functioning)
Her neighbour went and checked and Ma was fine...but she told her she did not know how to use the new phone!
GRRR!.
Maybe I didn't spend long enough showing her. Maybe I didn't check her using it enough...should have rung a few more folk.
I honestly can't see that I confused her over how to use the phone, but clearly she doesn't feel like she can use it.
OR(forgive me Lord) she has decided that she is not going to be bamboozled into using a new fangled thing(I said she was ornery).
Whatever it is, tomorrow I will be up there going through it all again and perhaps even leaving her written step by step instructions.
I swear my intentions were good.
If you read my previous episode you will know that Ma had been plagued with blooming nuisance calls...and one particularly scary one for her.
This does my box in. I am constantly trying to make life easier for her...not for any altruistic reasons, but I know if Ma is content them I am too.
I am sure that you all know what an independent old baggage she is...and how she hates having to rely on anyone...I guess you also know where I get my bloody minded stubbornness too...I inherited it from her.
I regaled you with tales of how I had got her a newer, more modern phone. One that would block these nuisance calls...with a light up display, with big buttons...a bells and whistles jobby.
She said she was too old to get used to something new...I did not believe it...but I did believe that if she sets her mind against something, then she won't have it.
Today it was a visit to the Doctors for her yearly overhaul and blood tests.
I had taken the brand new shiny phone up to her house on Friday.
I plonked it on top of the piano and told her that I would set it up today and then show her how to use it.
Well, we got drowned going to the docs as the Heavens opened and dumped several bucket of tepid water on us just as we left the house.
When we got back Ma wasn't in the best of moods....her bum was wet from sitting for half an hour on a wheelchair seat that had copped a lot of this rainwater.
I tried to coddle her along by suggesting that I would set up the phone and then go for a fish and chip dinner for her.
When I say 'set up the phone' it was nothing really...just disconnecting the old one and plugging the newer model in. I had programmed most of her numbers in at my house.
I had set up speed dial....all the numbers she uses most were on there and I showed her how easy this was. Just press number 1 and it dials me...you know the drill.
What could be easier...? No keying in the numbers, a four year old could do it.
I let her have a go and she phoned my daughter with ease.
I showed her some of the other functions too, but not too many as I feared it might just spook her.
So what went wrong?
I am not sure...but Himself rang her this evening and she did not pick up....I rang her twice a little later. She still did not pick up.
I rang her next door neighbour and asked her to give Ma a knock...explaining that I had set up a new phone today and she wasn't picking up.(I though the phone might be unplugged or ...lost its charge...or that it was not functioning)
Her neighbour went and checked and Ma was fine...but she told her she did not know how to use the new phone!
GRRR!.
Maybe I didn't spend long enough showing her. Maybe I didn't check her using it enough...should have rung a few more folk.
I honestly can't see that I confused her over how to use the phone, but clearly she doesn't feel like she can use it.
OR(forgive me Lord) she has decided that she is not going to be bamboozled into using a new fangled thing(I said she was ornery).
Whatever it is, tomorrow I will be up there going through it all again and perhaps even leaving her written step by step instructions.