EVERY time you think you have caught up with new technology something else comes along. Now it's text messages.

Now I don't know if my telephone does text messages, and frankly I shan't be trying to find out. I'm into communication overload as it is.

I never used to understand how my teenage children could spend all day with a friend at school, travel on the same bus home, get off one stop away from each other and five minutes later be in desperate need to talk to that person on the telephone because whatever earth shattering piece of information they had to share could not wait even overnight.

The only saving grace about this was that we parents developed extra sensitive hearing that could detect the faint click of a telephone receiver being lifted even if we were down the bottom of the garden.

Now they have mobile telephones a text-messages and the latter is fairly silent, so they can 'communicate' with such riveting intellectual offerings such as 'ICU today?'

That is the sad thing about this mad rush to talk or text all the time. Nobody is discussing the theory of relativity, they are more likely to be asking, as I overheard a mobile phoner say in the supermarket the other day, 'do you want cauliflower or broccoli?' for dinner.

E-mailing is slightly different in that you can write letters on it without the need to find stamps or a post box. As a fairly new regular e-mailer I still enjoy the novelty, but still feel slightly guilty about sending what is collectively called electronic mail.

This is the fault of being brought up to believe you should never write personal letters in anything but handwriting, preferably using a fountain pen.

At school we used to have lessons from a very well brung up lady with a plummy voice who was tasked to pump into us as many social niceties as she could in her allotted one hour per week. Besides giving instruction about standing up straight, crossing our ankles when sitting down (full leg crossing was terribly vulgar) and various things like wearing gloves, not wearing headscarves, never smoking in the street (as we were all about 12 this last one seemed somewhat superfluous), she devoted several hours to letter writing.

Rule number one was handwriting in ink. Rule number two was using decent paper, preferably Basildon Bond with matching envelopes, both in either white or pale blue. Lilac, green or pink was definitely out. Ink should be blue or black, ditto.

A whole hour was devoted to how to address letters to various people she considered might one day be within our social sphere. These included royalty, minor royalty, archbishops, various aristocracy from both home and abroad. Sadly it has never fallen within my lot to write to anybody of this ilk, but it's nice to know I could if needed.

I do remember the absolute rules on ending letters. Yours faithfully only if you didn't know the person's name. Never just sincerely (common), or yours truly (very common) and certainly never just 'yours' (beyond the pale).

Yours sincerely was the only way to go. I still flinch if I get a letter signed 'yours very truly', although I flinch more when I get a letter addressed to me by name which still starts 'Dear Sir or Madam'. Or even one a week or so ago which began 'Dear Madmam'. Obviously someone who had met me before!

As for e-mails, I may be breaking the handwriting rule but I still like to observe the niceties. Unlike a lot of people who think this new mad, mad world of technology allows them to take such liberties as 'Hi there Mary' , rounded off by 'See ya'. Oh, my poor late teacher will be spinning in her grave. But very properly keeping her ankles crossed you understand.

We are all, at the moment, getting ready for the South Hill annual flower show on Saturday. The healthy spirit of competitiveness already has a few cracks in it, if that makes sense. By Saturday morning when it comes to getting our flower arrangements together there could be ugly scenes around the hydrangeas as two of us tussle over the best flower head.

The garden has echoed more than once with 'take your hands off my sweet peas' and 'if you touch those pinks you've had it'.

There was a time when I thought that entering a village show just involved trotting around the garden in a pretty dress of sprigged cotton plucking few healthy vegetables and flowers and popping them in a basket.

But oh no. You have to prepare and polish, pick and present. Onions have to be 'dressed'. What in? Little romper suits decorated with chives?

Flowers are inspected daily. Put them in the fridge, someone said. Not in our fridge, I think, they are either likely to be buried under yoghurt or eaten by someone late at night in an impromptu sandwich.

Friends are guarded with each other. No, they're not certain if they are entering the foliage class, they'll just wait until Saturday and throw a few leaves together. Translated that means they have already constructed an elaborate pillar of exotic foliage on half a ton of oasis which is being kept under lock and key in the shed.

'Has anyone got a tape measure?' is a general cry, because size does matter here and your marrows can't overstep the mark and your courgettes must remain compact.

Beans must be straight. Do splints work on beans I wonder? Peas must be full podded. I urge mine to fill out by Saturday; 'grow you little b....... grow', I cry in very un-Prince Charles plant talking mode.

My jam is ready and potted, with little discs of waxed paper over it. Someone says they have covered their's with circular pieces of gingham, neatly pinked at the edges and I sneer a bit, but wonder if I've got time to seek out red and white gingham and find the pinking shears.

Elsewhere the house is full of paint and paper, pasta and glue. The cat has eaten a marshmallow off someone's edible necklace so there's tears before bedtime. I'm having a tantrum because someone is using my special tiny plastic pudding bowl, due to hold the individual sweet, as a paint water container. It's only Wednesday and we're all exhausted.

And oh yes, rhubarb. Last year I had the ignominy of being the only entrant in the rhubarb class and only getting a third. Someone said my rhubarb was wilting. Wilting! You'd wilt if someone wrenched you out of the ground, cut your top off, thrust you under a cold tap and then left you all alone in a hot hall.

This year I'm making sure my rhubarb is stiff as a poker. Stiff but very short, because someone illegally removed the longer stalks for a pie (a stalker in the garden?).

If that pie wins there will be sharp words indeed.