Internet Down

At 1010 this morning as I was listening to BBC Radio Scotland there was an ominous clunk, click and then, like an old school radio toggle switch being thrown, we were out! As in “over and out”. Perhaps that, in contemporary parlance, should be “outage”! After 7 hours it’s beginning to feel more like outrage!

In our new house we put all our comms eggs in one basket and someone at the exchange has dropped that basket and the resulting omelette is utterly useless in connecting us to the world.

We went for a long walk hoping it would be back on when we got home. No such luck. We met new neighbours who were also without their internet connections. No consolation but perhaps a small sense of solidarity?

I realised all over again today how dependant we are on technology. When it works we never give it a second’s thought. When it’s not there we suddenly know all about it! Hey ho! I am now waiting for a text to tell me that we are back online!

On our walk we met the daughter of a 90 year old farmer’s wife who still lives in the farmhouse whose surrounding fields have all been sold for houses. She described her childhood here with orchards and a wide range of livestock in the fields around her former home. An idyllic scene from a rustic earlier world that had no comprehension of broadband or WiFi!

150,000 U.K. Covid deaths announced today. I find this incredibly hard to process as I try to think of every grieving family.