Saturday 22 October 2016

There is a wall calendar

in our house. I make one every year. I buy a very large sheet of thin card, cut a strip off so that it will fit into the designated space on the side of the cupboard next to the 'fridge, rule the lines and paste on the months and days of the weeks. The numbers get, sort of, written in with my atrocious paw marks.
My mother used to make one of these calendars - but of course hers was all done with beautiful "infant school" printing. We have a collection of them from the last few years of her life. The Senior Cat has kept all the calendars for about the last 20 years - on the grounds that "we may need to look at them some time". Perhaps. 
I admit that keeping one is useful because it provides the ruler marks for the calendar I am drawing up. Occasionally we have referred back to the previous year.
At the beginning of each year the calendar looks fairly empty. All I have put in are the regular events such as birthdays and "last Tuesday of the month" type meetings. Over the year the calendar gradually fills up. If an appointment needs to be made or someone needs to know if we are going to be home then a glance at the calendar will tell us if the time doesn't clash or we will be home.
"Hold on a moment, I'll have a look at the calendar," I can tell someone.
I have a calendar associated with the email too of course. I also keep a small diary for the purpose of meetings and appointments and essential reminders.
     "You don't need all those things!" I have been told - and told by multiple people many times. "Why don't you just put it all in your phone?"
I have no idea how to "put it into (my) phone". I am not even sure my phone - which my youngest nephew kindly described as "pre-dinosaur" can do anything like that. I still can't send a text message - but that also has something to do with the size of the  buttons on the thing and my clumsy paws.
I may learn to do these things but there is something to be said for not doing them. The old technology doesn't require batteries. I also have the information in more than one place. If I lost the diary the information would be in the computer calendar or on the wall calendar. 
It also means that I still tend to remember things.  I am not relying on the computer or my phone to remind me. As I find it difficult to write the very act of writing it onto the wall calendar or into my diary helps me remember.
I think I'll go on remembering in this way as long as I can.

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