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Posts Tagged ‘friends’

  1. Hanging On the Telephone

    July 15, 2012 by Amy Hansford

    I had a brilliant hen weekend. My amazing maid of honour and co found a fantastic house with a maze of rooms, a great chill out lounge plus a pool and jacuzzi. We relaxed, we had the Amylympics and generally escaped from it all which is what we all needed.

    I did witness a curious occurance, and probably would not have noticed it had my phone had an ounce of signal. Unintentionally, I ended up on a communications blackout as I only had signal on my mobile in a small area of the bedroom. This turned out to be a good thing – it forced me to relax. I found myself holding a cup of tea with both hands and being able to observe and enjoy everyone having fun. I wasn’t checking my emails, Twitter or Facebook every two minutes*. I had no idea what the rest of the world was up to – I was happy in the one we’d all made in Lincoln.

    It also gave me the chance to look around. I saw a room full of friends alternating between sharing the experience of a duvet day and near silence as everyone checked their friends’ Facebook statuses. I saw people take photos of what was happening and upload them as soon as they could. Even on a getaway, people were drawn to share their experiences with the rest of the world rather than with those in the room at the time. There’s nothing wrong with this – it’s the world we live in – I just found it curious.

    Similarly, on the last night when there were only seven of us, we had a karaoke session. Karaoke is something that is very much a social experience. You reciprocate the support your friends give you while singing by supporting them when it is their turn. I found myself singing a tune and looking out to find silent friends checking their smart phones. Again, that’s now the norm and wouldn’t be noticed in the pub, but it was a strange thing.

    I should reitterate, had I had normal reception on my phone, I would have been doing exactly the same.

    So what did this experience teach me?

    I am too reliant on my phone and, specifically, my internet access.
    I’ve started leaving my phone on the table at home rather than having it stuck to me.
    I’ve vowed not to live life through a lens – I will watch gigs and shows and giggles, not record them.
    I appreciate seeing friends and family and keep reminding myself that tweets, messages and emails won’t disappear if I don’t look at them.

    How much do you rely on your phone?

    *Yes, that’s pretty much the frequency I check. I am addicted to my iPhone.


  2. Spring(ish) Cleaning

    November 22, 2011 by Amy Hansford

    After various friends having Facebook friend culls, I thought I’d do my own this week.

    Picture care of Doug Savage from over at www.savagechickens.comFor anyone who doesn’t know, you can end up with a lot of friends on Facebook. It starts off as one or two old school friends, the ones you used to share a desk with Then their school friends find you and add you, the ones who never really spoke to you. Then their school friends find you and add you, the ones that used to bully you. But you can’t say no – it’s impolite, isn’t it?
    Then there are the friends you used to see every weekend, ten years ago. The ones who, after an initial ‘So great to see you on here!”, forget to ever speak to you again.
    Not to mention the ones that drive you up the wall with their gullibility (“Facebook are going to start charging £3 a month – I’m not paying! Join this group if you agree”), copy and pastes (“Post this as your status, if you have someone keeping an eye on you from above”) and incessant shouting/use of text speak (XFACTOR 2MO NIGHT).

    And so I culled my friend list.
    My criteria? Those who I’d not communicated with (or visa versa) for over a year or made me want to punch them in the face. I figured I’d go down by about thirty or so. EIGHTY. Eighty people, gone. That’s one in five. And I shouldn’t think any of them will miss my updates.

    Me? It’s not made a huge impact on my feed, but there are less irritating posts and I see more of the people I frequently catch up with. People who weren’t kind to me at school have gone – I feel happier knowing that they don’t get to see my happiness now. And it’s refreshing to have done.

    So, does your friend list need to be so big?

    Picture care of Doug Savage from over at www.savagechickens.com


  3. Tis the season…

    December 27, 2010 by Amy Hansford

    …to catch up with people and eat lovely food.

    Yep, I’ve been rubbish at blogging of late. I have all the usual excuses – pick the one you prefer.

    On Christmas Eve, we chauffered our friends Dee and Richard for their wedding. A Christmassy spectaular, with ‘Sleigh Ride’ as part of the service and balloon model reindeer on all the tables. It was a brilliant day, fantastic to see everyone and special to have been able to contibute a favour rather than a traditional wedding gift.

    Speaking of favours and gifts, every reception attendee was met with a goody bag. Lovely Christmassy bits in them, but I won’t spoil the secrets within.

    Another great bit of fun for the tables was the introduction of a ‘pass the parcel’ only with instructions on who should open the next layer rather than relying on music, i.e. the person with the smallest shoe size, the person with the shortest hair etc. I think our table pretty much trampled over everyone’s attempts at doing the loudest animal noise.

    Also, the wedding contained probably the best first dance I have ever seen. You’ve watched the videos of people dancing down the aisle, people re-enacting Dirty Dancing, people slow dancing only to break into Mc Hammer’s ‘You Can’t Touch This’. Rich and Dee not only acted out clips from at least 30 songs, they’d managed to construct it so as to tell the story of how they met. Brilliant.

    Rich and Dee’s first dance


  4. Just a jump to the left

    February 17, 2010 by Amy Hansford

    After work yesterday I drove up to Leicester to meet with friends who were watching The Rocky Horror Show. I admit, I was anticipating to be a little bored by the show having seen it so many times. But once it got going, I remembered how beautifully it’s been restaged. The finale is so moving, the message now true having beaten the hen-night-mentality brought on by previous tours. And it may be the techie in me coming out, but the lighting in the last reprise especially was gorgeous.