Logging - Nick Spalding Page 0,112

my own decisions. And remember to always think for myself, instead of letting other people – or the Internet – do it for me.

Right now, I’m thinking about whether the rest of Grace feels as warm and lovely as her hand does.

And nothing else seems to matter very much.

Not the future of Loggers Off, not Wilberforce and Colin, and definitely not my bloody digital detox – which has most definitely come to its natural end here this evening in Heirloom Coffee.

If I only know one thing about the journey I’ve been on, about my time in the analogue wilderness, it’s that all of it has been completely and totally worth it – because I met Grace.

I met the woman I love.

And I would follow her anywhere.

Including on Instagram and Twitter.

Epilogue

BALANCED

Today is an important day.

It’s the day Loggers Off meet at their new venue for the first time – a large community centre in town that holds about five hundred people. A lot of those attending will still meet up at Heirloom Coffee for the debrief afterwards, though. Wilberforce and Colin have promised to come along and continue chatting to those who are interested in hearing from them in a more informal setting. Puggerlugs has his own little Loggers Off T-shirt now. He looks very cute in it.

I won’t be going along, for two very important reasons.

The first – and least important – is that I am no longer doing a digital detox. I am no longer a Logger Off. Haven’t been for over two months now, in fact.

The second reason – which utterly dwarfs the first – is that today is Grace’s birthday.

I’m taking her out for a meal tonight – at a Thai restaurant in the city.

I found it on TripAdvisor. It has a five-star rating, with over seven hundred reviews, so I’m very much hoping it’s going to live up to expectations. The chicken with cashew nuts is meant to be particularly good.

I called the restaurant on the phone to make the booking.

I spoke to a very nice Thai girl called Preeda, who promised to sit us at a quiet table. She also offered to buy a birthday cake for Grace at a little extra cost, which she will bring to the table at the right moment. I don’t know how embarrassed Grace will be when the whole restaurant starts singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her, but I’m hoping she’ll appreciate the gesture.

It’s not lost on me that if I’d just booked the restaurant online, there would have been no friendly chat with Preeda, and therefore no birthday cake.

During the week I ordered a brand-new black short-sleeved polo shirt on Amazon, and a brand-new pair of blue jeans from ASOS. Both arrived yesterday. I liked the jeans, but the shirt didn’t really fit, so I popped into town this morning to pick up a different one from M&S, which I love. It hides my small spare tyre quite nicely.

I paid for the polo shirt with cash, and spent five minutes chatting with the young guy at the till, whose name was Jarrod. He told me to wish Grace a happy birthday, and said he thought the polo shirt I’d bought was very nice.

Finally, this afternoon, I picked up a bunch of flowers from a local florist. It’s one that has received rave reviews in the local community forum on Facebook. The bunch of red roses is enormous, very fragrant and does a good job of masking the slight odour of cigarette smoke in the Uber that takes me to Heirloom Coffee, where I am to pick Grace up at the end of her workday.

I tried to convince her to take the whole day off, but when you run a business it’s not quite that easy to just chuck a sickie. Especially when that business is thriving – largely thanks to how much attention the coffee shop has got in recent months, and how many times it’s appeared in the local paper.

I’d also like to think that its success is partially down to the new marketing campaign I put together for it. The new logo I designed – which features a stylised rendition of Grace’s locket – looks rather fantastic on the front of the shop, even if I do say so myself.

Needless to say, I did that job for free.

I haven’t had as much time to put into promoting Heirloom as I’d really like, though, because I’ve been inundated with graphic design work.

The coffee shop isn’t the only thing that’s done well from being in the spotlight – however temporary that spotlight turned out to be. Andy Bellows the detox guru may have died a suitable death – but Andy Bellows the busy graphic designer is very much alive and kicking.

No complaints, though. It means I get to take my girlfriend out for an expensive Thai meal on her birthday.

When I climb out of the Uber, I say goodbye to the driver with a broad smile on my face and turn to the café’s front door with the roses clutched in my left hand.

I look every inch the man in love.

If you were to take an Instagram picture of me right now, you’d have to use the hashtags #lovedup, #deadromantic and #veryhappy.

Because I am all of those things.

I am also a man who has learned something very valuable.

A secret that really shouldn’t be much of a secret at all.

And it’s this . . .

Life is about finding your balance. No matter how long it takes. No matter how hard it is to get there. And no matter how many duck ponds you have to drive into.

Because you will get there, eventually. Trust me.

And if you don’t trust me, then you can always google it, can’t you?

But now it’s time for me to walk into Heirloom Coffee, find my girlfriend, hand over these flowers and go for a lovely meal – where there will be five-star food and birthday cake.

The last thing I do before I venture inside is quickly rate my Uber driver on the iPhone app. I give him four stars, because the ride was quick and smooth but the car did smell of cigarettes.

And then, as I push the front door open with my shoulder and see Grace’s eyes light up when she spots the flowers in my hand, I slide my phone back into the pocket of my brand-new jeans – where it will stay until tomorrow.

Because logging off isn’t something you should only do once.

It’s something you should do every single day.