The Cheesewring

A few posts back I related how I fell into a gorse bush in North Devon, scratching face, hands and legs, and leaving me with a potential scar on the front of my face, between nose and upper lip. I'm happy to say that nearly all the scratches have now healed, and that any facial blemish will be unnoticeable. It's already nothing to worry about - and of course nobody can see my rapidly-healing wounds underneath my mask when I go shopping, or fill Fiona up with fuel.

I'm now tempted to think that I had become a trifle hubristic about my mountain-goat abilities! For only four days previously I had been clambering around on massive granite boulders on the south-eastern edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, and I accomplished that without falling. I suppose there was one key difference: I wasn't wearing my ultra-stout Alt-Berg walking boots, but my lighter and more stylish Dubarry boots, which are essentially posh leather wellies, and at their bottom end far more like a conventional shoe, able to flex, and not nearly so clumpy to wear. I wouldn't want to walk very far in them, not as much as five miles, but for shorter distances in cool weather they are fine. I've never yet stumbled while shod with them, and didn't on this occasion on Bodmin Moor. Here's my feet with the boots on. I bought them in 2011, and they have lasted very well.

So what was I doing on Bodmin Moor? I wanted to take another look at the remarkable stone circles known as The Hurlers (last seen on a cold, wet, very misty afternoon on 27th December 2010) and then walk over to the amazing natural pile of stone boulders called The Cheesewring, perched above a disused quarry on nearby Stowe's Hill, which I had never visited before. All of this was close to a village called Minions. Here are some location maps:

Minions was once the centre of an important mining and quarrying industry in this part of Bodmin Moor, and hosted a network of tramways established in the 1840s to take the extracted goods away, known as the Liskeard & Caradon Railway, as shown in these screenprints of an old six-inch Ordnance Survey map from 1907 (regard them as joined together to form one map):

By 1907 industrial operations around Minions and Caradon Hill were already in decline, as revealed by the number of 'disused' shafts, pits and quarries shown on the map. The whole tramway system north of Moorswater near Liskeard was abandoned in 1916. The truncated line at Moorswater, which had china clay traffic and connected to the Looe Valley line (and Looe quay), carried on, and still operates. A train from the main line goes there once a week on Wednesdays to collect the clay via a weird steep loop from Liskeard station. I was parking Fiona at Liskeard station on 23rd September, and actually saw this mineral train without realising what it was, although a linesman explained its purpose to me shortly afterwards. My adventures at Liskeard - or more particularly Coombe Junction down in the valley at the other end of that loop - are coming up soon in another post.

Strangely the 1907 map doesn't name The Hurlers, nor the outlying pair of stones known as The Pipers. But it does show The Cheesewring. 

That winter afternoon at Minions in 2010 had been something of a disappointment. Weather conditions were dire. It was bitterly cold, misty, the light was failing, and the ground was squelchy from a thorough and prolonged soaking from melted snow. There was even some unmelted snow here and there. I was determined to get some good shots of the stones, but had to admit that my efforts were not successful. They were defeated by the mist and the dull light:

Yes, these shots had atmosphere of a sort; but they were still substandard pictures. I thought that some of them actually looked better if I experimented with the editing tools I had, to produce monochrome and false-colour effects:

All well and good, but I promised myself that I would return one day and take proper pictures in better weather. Thus it was on 23rd September that I arrived at Minions, parked Fiona, donned those Dubarry boots, and had a good walkaround. Once again, not in the best weather. But bright enough, even if rain got ever likelier.

Minions itself is just a small village in a semi-bleak setting, a focus for outdoor types with dogs to walk, and those interested in industrial archaeology, as well as the more conventional sort of archaeology. Normally you can get tea and cake here, and visit the Heritage Centre (which I didn't find, but I think was in a conspicuous old engine house with a chimney, in the moor north of the village centre). Here's a flavour of Minions, including a shot of a house that made reference to the Minions in the movies. (Not my sort of movie, you'll understand)

Let's leave The Hurlers and The Pipers for last, and go straight for the jugular. The Cheesewring. 

The approach was easy. Literally just a walk through the rough grass, vaguely following where others had trod. The Cheesewring is a pile of flattish or pillow-shaped granite stones balanced on top of each other in a stack arrangement. Presumably the eroded remains of a jointed and fissured rock outcrop, now seen after a very long process. It's perfectly solid and stable, but with further erosion - or a local earthquake - might become less so. It now stands on the edge of a man-made cliff, one side of a quarry hewn out of the rock. Its not the only pile of stone slabs up there, but it's the main one, and it caught the eye as I came ever nearer. 

Although its silhouette was distinctive, I can't say that I was especially impressed when seeing it at a distance, but closer up it seemed mighty. It got rockier underfoot as I neared the quarry, and some clambering was needed to get a good view across the quarry to its perching-point.

Then I had to make my way carefully over the rocks, on rising ground with no very obvious path to follow, and then steadily upwards to The Cheesewring. It wasn't difficult, but it took a good effort, and it felt like a proper achievement to finally get there, as you can see from my expression!

The Cheesewring, at last. Massive rocks, certainly. Astonishing to think that they must be the weathered remnants of something much bigger. I took photos from various angles.

I have said that The Cheesewring was natural, but I couldn't help thinking that a rocky pile like this could be made with discarded quarry stones and a big strong crane! Perish the thought.

I then went over to another pile of rocks nearby that stood at an even higher point on Stowe's Hill. I thought that I might as well get to the summit, and survey the landscape around. I climbed up only so far, nearly onto the topmost slab but not quite. It was too much of a step up, and besides the wind up there was fierce, and I wanted to avoid being blown off. Great views all the same.   

This particular pile of stones was pitted with little rainwater basins, places where rainwater had collected over millennia, eventually creating a circular bowl with a drainage outlet. In very hard rock.

A thirty-something couple with dogs came into view, and we had a short chat. The man was keen to get his feet atop the slab I had only rested my arm on. And he did, with one of the dogs too. I saw them up there as I started my decent.

One last look at The Cheesewring as I left the hill. I don't suppose I'll ever go back. 

And so to The Hurlers and The Pipers. On the way I looked out for signs of those old tramways. I saw some well-graded green grass tracks of likely width, and decided they must be track-beds of the former tramway lines. I really thought I could see stone sleepers with spike-holes in them. But when I traced my route afterwards on the old OS maps, I saw that I'd been mistaken. My direct route to the stones took me off to the west of where the tramways had actually been. 

The Hurlers, and their outlying stones, form a complex of three stone circles. How I wished it were a fine sunset, as I contemplated them on the day.  Oh well. More nondescript shots. At least it was fairly dry underfoot and not freezing cold!

I paid more attention to The Pipers this time, partly because I could see where they were. They reminded me of a pair of blunt fangs.

As before, I think the monochrome shots, enhanced, look better. But you may disagree!

That was that. The rain, threatened all afternoon, had started to spit a bit, and by the time I was on my way northwards towards Launceston, and ultimately Great Torrington in North Devon, it was raining steadily. I didn't care. I cooked a good meal and settled down for an evening of photo-editing with the radio for company - LBC until ten, then Classic fm.

All the shots in this post (whether from 2010 or 2020) were taken on the same camera, my little Leica. The perfect companion for a moorland trek, I think!

Are there silly people in Labour heartlands, spreading infection?

I was talking with a London friend two days ago, an evening voice call at an agreed time. It was chiefly a long catch-up conversation, but we touched on other subjects, such as the rapidly growing number of coronavirus cases in certain areas of the country. And my friend said something that I hadn't occurred to me. 

We were discussing why London, South Wales, and the cities of the North - a whole swathe of them - were now generating such a high rate of infections. I'd put it down mainly to local conditions of one kind or the other, mixed in with particular local attitudes and social customs that made cross-infection likelier than in - say - the Devon countryside. 

My friend went further. She said that these high-infection places were the very ones that had remained staunchly Labour in the December 2019 General Election. The inference? That diehard Labour supporters were getting infected in large numbers by ignoring all the social-distancing rules.

Her suggestion was that these places were full of people totally opposed to the current Conservative government, now and forever. And fully minded to ignore or defy any health measures that the government were promoting, simply to spite the government. Regardless of the penalties. And never mind the high risk of contracting a serious respiratory disease that might prove an uncomfortable experience, and in some cases life-threatening or even fatal. If not for them, then for those in their circle.

As for who in these Labour strongholds was being so reckless, it was presumably the younger constituents (meaning young adults) who felt invulnerable to infection, and didn't care about infecting somebody older who definitely was vulnerable. These were places where night-time clubbing was very much part of the social scene.  

I thought afterwards that my friend had made a good point, but I still wanted to compare maps of election results with a recent map of infection cases. Fortunately I had taken screenshots of the December 2019 General Election results, and the ZOE Covid-19 app gave me the current infection map. Here they are. The ZOE map first, then three maps that between them show (in red) where the Labour vote won the seat.

Well, there does seem to be a strong geographical correlation - in England and Wales anyway - between the constituencies who returned a Labour MP (coloured red) and the locations of the latest infections (the black dots on the top map). So I'm thinking my friend was spot on. Hard core Labour voters must indeed be refusing to comply with national safeguards. In effect, deliberate civil disobedience.

Who are they? Surely not responsible mums and dads? Are they then young macho working-class men who want to give a vigorous two fingered salute to Boris Johnson? Could some - or many - be university students bent on enjoying themselves? Or is it just a rump of ill-educated, feckless idiots out of their minds with boredom, booze and drugs? 

This striking correlation hasn't yet been highlighted by any public body or political party. Little wonder about that: it would be a political hot potato. You know, 'good' conservative voters versus 'evil' Labour voters. Not to be discussed. 

Still, I hope that the Labour Party has already launched an urgent internal enquiry into why people in its heartlands seem to be contributing so greatly to an ongoing and worsening health crisis. I look forward to results from that. After all, Labour is so good at taking a deep, honest look at itself. 

It's still fun

Let's redress the balance a bit, after the pious rant in my last post!

There's pleasure to be had, lots of it, using old stuff in the old way. One of this morning's tasks reminded me of this truth.

Water Dragon is my fountain pen, the Parker 51 I bought online from a Yorkshire dealer in January 2019. She cost me £125 - a fair sum for a pen made in late summer/early autumn 1955! Water Dragon is only three years younger than me, and presently sixty-five years old. Not terribly old in fountain pen terms, but veteran if not actually vintage. And certainly a model universally regarded as one of the best-looking and most practical post-war pens made, if not the best for its purpose ever made. 

My motive? I wanted to write with a pen that would last a lifetime, and not with a disposable pen. I wanted inexpensive running costs. I wanted to write in style, with something very personal. A proper writing instrument that would be good for my handwriting. And I wanted something that harked back to different days, reviving a pen fetish I had at school in the 1960s. 

Fountain pens were compulsory then, even though good, smooth-writing, leakproof ballpoints had been around since the mid-1950s. I didn't resent the compulsion one bit. It was one draconian school rule that I actually liked. It made the grammar school regime tolerable. I loved the little green-and-gold Parker pen I had then, and thoroughly enjoyed the ritual of filling it up with ink that had a chemical aroma I appreciated. I wore that pen out. 

Others followed. I remained a fountain-pen fan beyond my hated schooldays, right through my career in fact. It was only retirement, and increasing use of handheld organizers, and (later on) smartphones, that made me stop. I used disposable rollerballs for odd jottings.

But in early 2019 all that changed. As with the recent resurrection of my Leica D-Lux 4 camera, I wanted something extra. Driven by curiosity and a new-found determination to do things differently, I found it was easy to buy a good example online of the pen I'd always wanted at school. A Parker 51. In a nice colour too. And there was the fun of making a pen-case for my new friend, and getting the right ink.

Surprisingly, new fountain pens were still being sold - a huge range, not by any means all upmarket and fiendishly expensive - although most of the selling was now online. Pen counters in department stores had largely vanished. As had most of the department stores! But any decent art shop had ink bottles. As did W H Smith and Ryman. So I was in business, and could clearly remain so. The demand for fountain-pens and their paraphernalia may have reduced in the twenty-first century, but it was still healthy in the artistic and creative sphere. And for individualistic types like me.

I gave away my unused disposable rollerball pens, and resolved to use only Water Dragon - whatever the writing occasion. Hence the pen case I made, so that she could be carried around in safety: upright and free from shocks in my bag, and protected from harm.

Did I stick to that plan? Yes indeed! I have made a point of it. It's been easy and delightful to use Water Dragon often - many times a day, in fact - because it's surprising how often a quick paper note is needed, rather than a keyboard-made record. And nothing else will do so well for birthday cards, for visitor comments in churches, and for compiling shopping lists that look stylish when scooting around Waitrose.

So hurrah for old tech! (Well, at least the right sort in the right place!) 

Don't tell me you can't cope

I suppose I shouldn't, but I do get very annoyed whenever I hear about another 'old person' who puts up with ever-increasing inconvenience, and is feeling ever more out of touch and disadvantaged, because they 'can't understand how computers work' and 'all that modern technology'. 

A lot of the so-called 'modern technology' they refer to (such as smartphones) has been around for over a decade, and some things (like email and internet shopping) for two decades. There has been a lot of time - a generation - in which to embrace this stuff and move forward with it.

The news report that has set me off on my high horse is about a lady who is aged seventy. 

For goodness sake. That's senior, but not nowadays in the 'aged and infirm' category. Or at sixty-eight, I'd better be packing up shop right now, and accepting all the frailty and incapacity that I'm clearly not acknowledging. 

I don't mind getting extra consideration (and perks) in my daily life for being an obvious oldie - it's a compensation for not being young and beautiful - but I don't want to be treated as if my mental faculties have declined to terminal levels. More especially, I don't want to be mollycoddled, and let off the hook, unless I'm genuinely unable to do whatever the task is. 

To be clear: I'm not up to fighting in a war, yomping across enemy terrain with a sixty-pound backpack. Nor digging trenches at home. But I am perfectly prepared to cope with all the changes that must come with dramatic climate change in the next twenty or thirty years. I expect plenty of upheaval, and many new things will have to be made part of day-to-day living. Well, like them or not, I am not going to bleat that 'all this is beyond me' and cop out. 

So when somebody just a year or two older than me pleads that they 'can't work a computer', and yet seems just as mentally alert and agile as myself, then I suspect that they have purely emotional reasons for clinging to the ways of fifty years ago. Or simply can't be arsed.

After all, if you can use a cooker, or a washing machine, or the TV remote control, or tune a radio, or operate any household gadget or device that uses electricity, then you can turn on a tablet and tap the screen. You don't have to know anything about computing science. Nor programming. 

It's much, much more important to know what a computing device can do for you, and how to access what you want safety and securely. And how to avoid getting hit with a scam. Zillions of people have been doing this for years. It's not new. It's certainly not difficult. I always trot out the example of my Dad, who, back in 2006 (when he was aged eighty-six) quickly set himself up on a bog-standard Dell desktop PC and keyboard, so that he could send emails, write his autobiography when Mum was ill, look up things on Wikipedia, and do online shopping with Tesco. OK, I helped him order the PC from Dell, and I set it up for him, but then he took over. At eighty-six, with arthritic fingers and wrists. That's why I want to say pah! and phooey! to anyone my age who tells me, in 2020, that 'all this modern technology is a mystery to them', and they don't want any of it. Or tell me 'it's so unfair that old people have been sidelined in this way.' What? Get real. The world has moved on.  

I feel even more irritated by younger people who affect ignorance or disdain for modern electronics. I think that's a very dangerous way to be. One day their life, or that of someone they care about, will depend of their knowing what this or that emergency device is, and how to call for help in times of flood or fire. They mustn't opt out as if it's all unnecessary, the junk and clutter of a world going in the wrong direction. The world has indeed been, in many ways, going in the wrong direction. But a lot of people are now hauling at the steering wheel that turns the rudder of the little boat called Planet Earth, and slowly - though too slowly now to avoid at least some irrecoverable changes and much distress - we will be saved from shipwreck. And those electronic devices will help us coordinate all the effort required. Nobody must opt out, and pretend that they can stand aside. There is a moral onus on us all to be connected with each other, to keep up to date, and be aware of what is happening.  

Of course, there are some special cases. I naturally exempt from my annoyance all those who have a genuine medical problem that prevents them getting to grips with the tech. And I exempt the very poor, who can't afford it - although if they can't, there's a compelling case for governments to provide them with basic equipment entirely for free. And in the rich Western World, nobody should be without good, functioning devices, either new, or pre-used and properly refurbished. I understand that the worldwide market for second-hand smartphones, strong at the moment, is likely to explode during the next ten years. 

Bear in mind that I'm no techno-warrior at the forefront of some movement. I'm just an average old biddy who uses her smartphone and laptop for a lot of things, most them serious and practical. I like to know what's going on, and I like to keep bang up to date. I keep alert for trends. I don't live my life as a young person would - my personal priorities are different. I want things they don't want, and no longer crave what they think vital. For the sake of having high, undamaged self-esteem and serene peace of mind, I stay away from the judgemental social media frenzy they feel is so necessary. Indeed, I scorn all frivolous, irresponsible and destructive uses of the Internet. But otherwise I use tech as intensively as anyone younger, and it's integrated into my daily life. 

I'm not a special case. And if I can do it, Miss Sixty-Eight of Mid Sussex, why can't Mrs Seventy Years Old of Dunstable, Bedfordshire? (That wasn't where the lady in the news report actually lived, but I'm willing to be considerate to her, and not reveal her true abode. Dunstable will do. I'm certain that there are plenty of 'old' ladies and gents in Dunstable who live as they did in 1970 - or 1990 - and refuse to change their habits and outlook. In fact they must be everywhere. Come the day of the Glorious Revolution - that is, when 5G arrives locally - they had all better fill their Thermos flasks and take cover in their coal cellars.) 

Please don't tell me that it's 'human nature' to resist change and cling to old ways, and that I'm silly to think otherwise. I agree that's a common failing. But if it were a fundamental trait of human beings, then nothing new would ever get invented. And yet so many things have been. And life has improved as a result. Some things, like better guns and bombs, were mistakes. Other things, like better ships and cars and aeroplanes have had a profound impact, generally good, but with some bad side-effects. But it's surely unarguable that advances in medical science - and the machines and electronic equipment that support those advances - have been an entirely Good Thing. 

I'd say that Mrs Seventy Years Old could be trained to use a hospital monitoring device. She might even want to learn how, if she could feel useful that way. And then enter the results in the patient record, using - yes - a screen and keyboard. Well, if she could manage that at the hospital, why not at home?

Rant over.

Taking the coronavirus seriously. No slacking.

The heightened risk of infection, if stepping outside one's local, trusted social bubbles without full personal control over whom one might encounter, has just made me back out of a proposed evening meetup with people who live at a distance, only two of whom would have been more than occasional friends. 

I'd know one of them well, one other fairly well, and the rest hardly at all. I'd have only a sketchy notion of everyone else's daily lives, and who else they mix with. And I couldn't take it on trust that all present on our table had kept themselves free of infection. How would anyone really know? I have no strong faith in regular testing. It doesn't protect anyone encountering a virus-carrier immediately after the test. There is no sure protection just now, except total isolation from other people. 

I'm prepared to think that observance of 'the rules' as one goes about in the world will reduce the risk to a manageable level. I'd say my personal practice here is excellent. I don't want to catch the virus, nor pass it on. I'd say the same for most other people in my circle, as we are all thinking, responsible people with very good reasons to be careful. Even so, I couldn't, hand on heart, swear that I am infection-free after all these months. I could be one of those symptomless carriers. I would have picked up the infection from any place I might have gone to - the supermarket, the filling station, who knows where - merely with an accidental close encounter, perhaps from some infected person who came too close as we passed. Or by touching some door handle. As easy as that. I probably wouldn't even notice when the critical contact occurred.

I can infer that I remain personally infection-free, as none of the local friends I see in my village has become ill after contact with me. And those particular friends are mostly 'vulnerable' for one reason or another, whether it's age, or some ongoing medical condition. We are none of us bouncing youngsters. But an inference is not a certain indication. 

Back to this cancelled meetup. 

As I say, it would have been an evening event, and although the venue itself would doubtless be safe and well-managed, an adjacent table or two of boisterous boozy revellers would be a risk I'd be keen to avoid. This is the thing: a bit of wine or lager, and people relax and forget those health rules, and the obligation to safeguard other people's well-being. Maybe it wouldn't be like that at all. But I don't have a crystal ball to consult. 

No, the risks of an evening meetup were were unacceptable. The event has been postponed for now. And if the present surge in new coronavirus cases gets worse, it may have to be postponed indefinitely.

At least that meetup would have been in low-risk West Sussex, with nobody attending from a high-risk area. I wouldn't like to even contemplate a meetup in some other parts of the country. The urban parts of Wales, the Midlands, and the North, for instance. I have to say it puzzles me why those areas are so high-risk, and not others as well. I've heard media commentators say that it's the consequence of high population density, poor housing, low pay, poor diet and poor health. That all seems to make sense, until you consider that the Southern cities and big towns - which also have their share of high population density, poor housing, low pay, poor diet and poor health - haven't, apart from London, sunk into similar pits of infection. 

Nobody in the media or in politics likes to say it - because it will offend - but mass-infection could be caused by hidebound local attitudes, entrenched family customs, the stupid, unhealthy tribal standards and conventions of different social groups, and selfish or ignorant individuals bent on having a good time together, whatever the consequences. I'd go along with all of that. And yet, surely, none of those things is solely a Welsh, Midlands or Northern thing. I can certainly bring to mind the boorish bigoted young men in rugby shirts that I've seen in Welsh streets and shops. It's easy to imagine them doing all the wrong things. (And by the way, I can put certain Welsh men down because I am Welsh myself, so there) But I've also seen similar boorish young men in places like Bournemouth, Hastings and Tunbridge Wells. It's a breed you can see everywhere, in the southern counties as much as anywhere else. And yet, generally speaking - excepting London, of course - the southern counties remain low-risk. 

So it may not be down to local culture at all. Or not much.

What about local climate? Many of the worse areas for infection are the rainiest in the country. Could dampness be a big factor? Or rather, cold and damp housing?

I'm off on another caravan outing shortly. My final fling of the year. A week in South Wales (at Pandy, only a few miles from the border with Herefordshire, and well away from the urban parts that are now in lockdown), then a week near Wareham in East Dorset. Both of them rural spots well away from high-risk areas. And, as with my recent West Country holiday, I shall be meeting only careful, responsible people I know. 

Who knows, before I set off President Trump may be fighting for his life in the hospital he's just gone into, or even dead from the virus he pooh-poohed so much. He's only six years older than me. I don't want to end up the same way. Or even have a bad time if I pick up an infection.

Taking the nuclear option

Well, that's it! I'm home again, and almost the first thing I've done as Commander-in-Chief at Melford Hall is to press the proverbial red button and take the nuclear option. 

Phew! I'm quite breathless! But the world hasn't come to an end. 

I'm talking about cancelling my home broadband contract, and having my landline disconnected. And relying completely on my 4G connection. Yes, I've gone wholly wireless. It's done. I think you'll agree that it's quite a step to take - very much against the grain, very much against current marketing. But I am not an idiot.

The upsides

# I presently pay £30.37 per month for my BT Fibre 1 unlimited-data home broadband. But the contract is close to its end, and BT are pushing a new contract at me. The least I'd pay after December would be £35.37 a month - for basically the same deal. I now won't have that expense. I can save most of that money instead. It's a useful extra to throw into my New Car Fund, a welcome boost to my Five Year Savings Plan. 

# It has irked me that because I'm away from home on holiday so much - normally for a quarter of the year - I am not able to get full value from my home broadband. I've been wasting a quarter of the money thrown at it. That's silly. But now no more of it.    

# I can ditch the Wi-Fi router and all that wiring around the house. Less clutter!  

# If (as regularly happens around here) BT have to fiddle yet again with their green roadside cabinets and cause another local outage - necessary or accidental - then I will be immune from such inconvenience.

# I will henceforth join the Wireless-Only World, years in front of most householders. Mobile Internet in the form of 4G is normally fine where I live. And things will only improve as time goes on. One day, there will be 5G here. I think that's a long way off, but you never know. BT has just teamed up with Nokia to replace the Huawei bits in its network, and will now be pressing on with better 4G, and 5G in many more places, to gain a market advantage over its rivals. BT Mobile's network (developed by EE, which BT now own) is robust and its coverage wide. It's good in the sticks, as well as in cities.

The downsides

# I will have egg on my face if BT's 4G service ever goes down! But I can't recall a recent instance of that. 

# There are, I agree, a few odd days in the year when weather conditions make 4G unusable at home for a few hours. But they are rare days. And if there is something I really must attend to, and I need a decent mobile internet connection, I can do what I sometimes have to do when on holiday - hop in the car and drive to a spot where I can get a usable signal. It's not a big deal. 

# I will lose a £5 a month discount on my separate SIM-only BT Mobile contract for getting my home broadband from BT. The monthly cost will go up from £15 to £20. That's OK. I will still be saving a net £30 a month overall. 

How I will get the Internet instead

# The phone is always directly connected via 4G. 

# If I want a large-screen experience, or if there's something to do that definitely requires a laptop, then I simply connect phone and laptop with a USB cable - just as I do on holiday - and select the 'USB tethering' option in settings. The laptop then taps into the Internet normally, via the phone. The phone itself can be used independently while the laptop is linked like this - including different websites. The data speed seems just as fast as the basic Fibre 1 broadband I've used at home up to now. I can't of course get a really high speed on 4G, but then I don't subscribe to a film or TV streaming service, nor play online games, nor run a business. 

# When tethered with a USB cable, the laptop charges the phone's battery up: handy.

# I used 10GB of mobile 4G data while I was away on holiday for four weeks, and that included much more photo uploading than I do at home. Still, to be on the safe side I have today doubled my BT Mobile data allowance from 20GB to 40GB a month, at no extra cost.  

# The current SIM-only contract ends in late May. I'm then expecting to move onto a similar SIM-only contract at less monthly cost. That's the way the SIM-only market is moving. I certainly don't expect to pay more, and can of course - if BT have no deal on offer that I fancy - be a tart, slip out of BT's embrace, and say hello to a new provider. (Then, later, return to BT and shamelessly claim a free gift for being a 'new' customer. I've become so cheeky - but it's the way things are done) 

# I will doubtless use my phone even more for looking things up quickly on the Internet, or recording my daily life in the various Word documents and Excel spreadsheets I have in Dropbox, up in the cloud. This poses no difficulties or challenges, except when making extensive changes to a particularly large and complicated spreadsheet, when a laptop's more spacious screen is obviously better. But next year, in the summer of 2021, I'll be buying a new phone. I can afford the best that Samsung will be selling, and it will certainly have a larger screen than my present phone (a Samsung Galaxy S8+ from 2017). That will narrow the gap between phone and laptop.

What doesn't change

# All my normal use of the Internet.

# I never used the email address BT gave me, so I won't miss it. 

# Nor have I used the landline for voice calls since 2012. I won't miss that either. I'm not sentimental about the landline number: it can go.

# I can still upload a lot of photos to Flickr, and publish blog posts. 

# As the laptop will normally be in Flight Mode all the time, it can't automatically download and install Windows updates. But I can check for those updates every three days and install them manually. This is what I do on holiday. (Similarly with various other laptop programs that periodically need an update)

# I watch very little TV, live or catch-up. But if the fit takes me, I can still switch the old Samsung TV on and see Freeview programmes using the ex-Sky satellite dish. It's not HD, but I don't mind. Or I can watch the odd live or catch-up TV programme on my laptop screen, tethering to the phone.

# I listen to a lot of talk radio and classical music on my portable Ruark DAB radio. That won't change. 

I can't see any significant drawback to what I've done. I'm simply putting my access to the Internet on a permanent 'holiday footing'. I'll be saving money. And life will seem just a bit simpler.

Ah, that pleasant sense of having decluttered!  

And yet it will be odd for a while, having no home broadband. I've had an Internet contract of one kind or the other since 2000, with Freeview, Wanadoo, Tiscali and then finally BT. Twenty years of Internet through a wire. But getting a modern smartphone in 2012 was a game-changer. It was inevitable that I'd give up on the old way of getting and sending data - through a wire, with all the fixed physical infrastructure that's needed, all of it vulnerable to storm and flood, and never as rock-solid as one might hope for. Nor is the wireless method entirely rock-solid either - but at least there are no roadside cabinets, no road works, and no fragile equipment to break, indoors or out. And the service is completely mobile, not fixed in one place.

Sequel - two days after the deed

All is going well. It's just like being in a good spot while on holiday. I connect phone and laptop with a cable, select the 'USB tethering' option in 'Connections' and I'm away. There is sometimes a longer delay (I'm talking about a second or two) to load up complex web pages, or a big heavily-formatted spreadsheet, but otherwise the experience is indistinguishable from using a Wi-Fi connection via one's home broadband. At least for the things I use the Internet for. And I'm not galloping through my data allowance, either. 

The weather has been cool and very rainy. A 4G wireless signal can be attenuated quite severely by certain weather conditions, in any season. But so far, so good!

BT required 30 days' notice of termination of service, so my home broadband is in fact still usable until 30th October, and the landline won't be disconnected until that date either. After then, I'm completely reliant on 4G. Some people would say 'You need a backup method of getting online in your home, not just through your phone. And in any case, 4G isn't good enough for high-intensity use of the Internet.' But in my case there is no high-intensity usage, and a duplication of Internet access is something I don't want to pay for. It would be no more than an expensive insurance policy against infrequent 4G outages. 

No, I think the wireless way is the way of the future. I've already consigned my Wi-Fi router to the attic, where it joins my already-redundant landline handset, and I've upped my monthly savings from December by £25. That'll be an extra £300 a year put by. Important money to me.