I’ve just driven a bit, up a track and in my scomfies to find a signal. Since the last two storms with all the leaks and the salt-swiped windows, my wifi is dead. This is the 6th day and it feels like 6 weeks. My neighbours have wifi. The village has wifi. Not me and it is more than an irritation. It is complete silence. No contact with my kids, no music, no emails, texts, whatsapps, no emails, no blog opportunities. How much I have taken for granted. I cannot contact BT nor any other provider. Emails take to be read and responded to, the latter I will miss. I drive down the village or up to the hill above the graveyards and get some reception there. Mostly, I listen to an audio book, feel very alone and do my very best to love it all, knowing, as I do, that way back there was none of this dependence, nor the need of it.

I find that, in this short time, I don’t feel comfortable in my clothes, that time stretches like toffee, that this whole growing old thing is no fun at all. I look for the fun, I do, but anyone who does this looking for fun thing must agree it’s exhausting at times. I notice – I flipping notice everything within this silence. The wave of a skinbone birch tree, the passing of walkers, the way my front gate is about to collapse through rot. I notice the birds I feed, the perk of a robin, the flutter of ring doves, the dance of copper leaves on the track.

At this point, a man might ask me to get to the point. There isn’t one. This is a weird time and because it’s the weekend, I could be days more without connection or connectivity. I do visit friends but friends are couples and they all have lives and those lives are busy and connected. Perhaps that’s my point. When I go back to my lovely home with its wood burner and welcome I will say this, that I have become dependent on the ease of connectivity, even though I knew no such opportunity through my younger life, and it is very hard to be so completely without it.