Off Line

One week on and we are adjusting to life without a dog. Not every day but most I am trying to get up early and go for a walk before the morning gets too hot. It’s strange walking without Hector – our first labrador would growl at people we met walking without dogs as if he was highly suspicious of their motive – but at least I can walk further and faster than I have been able of late. Looking on the bright side nor do I have to stop every ten yards for a sniff or a pee. Earlier this week I had woken around 5 am and lay listening to the distant rumble of thunder, pondering the wisdom of going out for a walk. But eventually it seemed to be fading so I pulled on some clothes and headed out for the fields, despite the increasingly heavy rain. I was about as far as I could be from home on my circular route when the thunder started up again, this time worryingly close. A fork of lightening stuck the ground ahead of me with no discernible gap before the thunder boomed. I picked up pace before the sky lit up once more and a deafening thunderclap instantly crashed like an explosion all around me. Mmm… thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening sprung to mind as I raced home in record time and lived to tell the tale, despite being drenched. But not an experience I wish to repeat.

Back home the final strike had seemed to land right in the centre of the village knocking out the internet in our street. Mostly it had been fixed by the end of the day but we weren’t so lucky as our router had been fried. As I type the new router has arrived but there’s still no internet connection so we are now waiting for an engineer. I might have to head to a café to actually publish this on time, or you might just get it late if at all. I haven’t missed the mindless scrolling through Instagram etc but unfortunately it has had more repercussions than just no social media for a few days. Our landline is also driven by the internet and given that I have zero network coverage on my mobile phone at home I have felt totally cut off, but I am nothing if not resourceful.

Unable to send an agenda for a meeting I thought I could print off some hard copies, that was until I clocked that our wireless printer requires internet to connect to the laptop in order to print. Not to be thwarted, I took a screenshot of the agenda and then sat in the supermarket carpark before doing the weekly shop and forwarded it to the committee via WhatsApp. The meeting went ahead as planned the following morning, I took minutes and then I managed to type them up and send them using the WIFI at Mum’s care home later that day. But it has made me hugely aware of how dependent we have all become on technology and just how easily it can all be snatched away. The next hurdle is ordering a repeat prescription which is usually done on the NHS app. I could phone the surgery, risking the wrath of the receptionists, but of course I don’t have a phone I can use anyway… and so it goes on! At least it’s another week before my credit card payment is due.

It turns out the smart TV is not so smart without the internet either. As we wanted to watch the England World Cup game this week we went to the local pub and I realised it was a first for me. I have never watched football on TV anywhere other than at home. It felt like a slightly alien environment, not helped by being one of only two women in the entire place, but being a game without goals or very much excitement of any description it was quite a sedate affair. I could easily have given it a miss, but I was happy to be sat in the air conditioned pub with a cold drink for a couple of hours. I stopped short of taking my knitting but I was tempted.

At last we have reached that time of year where all the hard work on the allotment is starting to pay off. There are plump red jewelled raspberries picked fresh every morning for breakfast and if we are lucky there are a few extras to stick in the freezer for a treat during the winter months, although it’s a much lower yield than usual this year, disappointing when they grow like weeds. There are lettuces ready for lunch and small, sweet courgettes and broad beans making an appearance at dinner time. Not exactly self sufficient but it feels good to know that some of what we eat is homegrown and organic. Plus on the allotment I have discovered I have two bars of phone signal if I stand in the right spot. Bonus! Twice a day I go over to pick veg and check my email.

Apparently 24^th June was National Writing Day in the UK although I do wonder who decides and declares such days. Without internet, I was unable to do much by way of research for my weekly Substack, hence you have this random collection of mundane notes from my week with very few photographs. I know I could have done the old fashioned thing and gone to the library to research and write, but I didn’t. It has been too hot to drive anywhere I didn’t need to go. However a national day for writing did remind me I had an abandoned manuscript that I could return to. I use the term ‘manuscript’ very loosely with my tongue firmly tucked in my cheek. Five months ago on 25^th January I pledged to myself to write 500 words a day on my ‘novel’ based on nothing more than a very vague idea for a story. What I wrote didn’t have to be any good, no one else even had to read it but consistency was the key to getting it written. It all started so well. I was consistent for about two weeks before grinding to halt. I had the beginnings of the first two chapters but I couldn’t see where it was going next, so I stopped and all thoughts of a novel were pushed from my mind.

So on National Writing Day following the discovery of a card during a morning spent clearing and tidying my desk (it’s amazing how much one can achieve when thrust back into an analogue world), the card coming from a kind reader Sue, who many months ago sent me a small gift to encourage me after I wrote about aspiring to write a novel, I resurrected the long forgotten word document. I’ve started some serious editing on the two chapters already written because it’s amazing how distance can lend clarity to what one is trying to achieve. In other words a lot of what I had written was utter tosh but ideas are sparking as to where it might go next and I have added another 1000 words. I’ll probably be enthusiastic for another couple of weeks before something else crops up but who knows, maybe this time I’ll continue to write.

I have just finished reading Land by Maggie O’Farrell and if there was ever a novel and novelist to inspire one to write, this is it. It is an epic story covering several generations of a family in the years following the Great Famine in Ireland. It begins with Tomás and his ten year old son Liam who are working for the Ordnance Survey Project to map the whole of Ireland. What follows is a tragic tale of a family’s attempts to survive, and make a life on the land that holds generations of history below its surface. Ancient woodlands, peat rich earth and deep clear pools contain stories and magical mysteries that become entwined with that of Tomás and his family as they are torn apart by tragedy and separation. It is a powerful story, and although often bleak and depressing it reminds us that the land goes on and holds our stories regardless of those of us who try to claim it. I highly recommend it but don’t expect a cheerful read.

And that’s about it for another week. Thank you as always for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next week, if the internet is playing ball. Until then please do click the heart and/or share to show me you care and help others find me.

And although my writing is free and always will be, if you fancy buying me a cold drink this week as we struggle though the heatwave the link is below.