Today I decided to get rid of my mobile phone. I've had one for a bit over six years (initially got it just before moving house, on the basis that it would be helpful to have a stable method of contact while everything else was up in the air), but hardly ever used it.

My biggest problem with a mobile is that I'm very bad at keeping battery-powered things charged. I initially kept the phone on all the time, but found that it would be on for a few days and then off for a week or more before I remembered to recharge it. So for the last few years I've mostly kept it turned off, on the basis that that way it's almost always got some charge in it, in case I need to turn it on and make an outgoing call. (I'd occasionally turn it on if I knew I was going to need to receive incoming calls, for example if I was trying to do a complicated piece of organisation involving meeting somebody in London.) Meanwhile, I've also been paying for it on contract, rather than PAYG, on the basis that PAYG would mean another thing I could never remember to keep charged up. Expensive for my usage pattern, but if the aim is to have it work when I really need it, it seemed the most reliable way.

A week or two ago I tried to turn the phone on for an outgoing call and found it wasn't working. This is the fourth phone I've gone through in six years, and it's now getting to the point where they fall apart (presumably due to battering in my pocket) almost as often as I need to make calls. So I decided enough was enough; I was just about willing to pay for the wretched thing's upkeep when it was occasionally actually useful, but if I can't even rely on it working on the very rare occasions I ask it to, it just isn't worth keeping. So enough is enough; I'm getting rid of it. Today I posted a letter to Orange cancelling my contract.

So now I've got all this space in my left pocket. I wonder what I should keep in there instead.