Does the fact that you’re currently reading this indicate that I’m a cyber-junkie? Does the fact that my computer-geek mate asked me yesterday what the hell I’ve done to the configurations indicate a techo-phile?

What about my VW from a few years back – sitting on 205 tyres and flared arches, big-bore, extraction, stabilizers, pre-amp and amp, surround sound system – does that indicate a frenetic brain? Or tearing through the forest with a Halda occupying the glove compartment and the navigator beside me having just given me a wrong turn and the nose 270 degrees up an embankment causing a four car pile up behind me – what does that indicate?

Or the three metre trolley table I built to go across the end of the bed to hold the two videos, TV monitor, mixer and fader for film making, connected with the quadraphonic surround sound?

‘You’d die without your technica,’ my ex-girlfriend sighed.

Now I walk twenty-five minutes from our flat to get the Lada from the carpark, swapping a bit of banter with the guys in the guardhouse, then joining all the other guys checking oil, adjusting fanbelts, topping up the coolant, replacing the gearstick ‘cushion’, as it’s called in the local language and other such delights. The Lada has four wheels, seats and a steering wheel.

On the way back I’ll stop by the side of the road and on what-passes-for-a-footpath I’ll buy clotted cream, dill, parsley, tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers and berries from the grandmothers lined up selling their wares, then stop in at the corner shop attached to our house for a slab of sawn-off meat and some cheese [on the other side of the shop, of course], plus some cocoa chocolate and water.

If the lift’s working, which is a blessing, my first question once back in the flat is, ‘Water on?’

‘Yep – hot and cold today.’

Well, that’s a relief. Yesterday, we went to the forest for shashlik and salad and a little afternoon delight by the lake. The collapsible barbecue went in the trunk/boot, the three day marinaded shashliks were in the large jar, the tea, which went through its five stage preparation, over twenty-five minutes, was in the vacuum flask and mushroom picking was suposedly the main purpose.

Then it was back to town, car away, twenty-five minute walk back home and time for the next post on nourishing obscurity.