After five weeks back at work, Sylvia and I are away from home, holidaying in Mill Cottage – a National Trust property. Set right on the edge of the beach at Wembury Bay, near Plymouth, our adopted living room looks out to sea, and to The Great Mewstone, a quarter mile offshore. When the sea mist obscures the view, our world is even smaller.

 

 

 

The soundscape varies according to the level of the wind, the level of the tide, and with them, the height and the breaking of the waves on the shore.  When calm, the sound is a gentle, smooth, whooshing rush, as the spume surges up the beach, and then sucks back.  With just a little strengthening of the wind, the taller, breaking waves crash, as they pound the sand and shingle.  The former lulls us to sleep; the latter disturbs our dreams.  I’d love to be here in a storm, with the waves crashing against the base of the cottage, spray flying up to the bedroom window!

 

 

 

For hours at a time, there is a wildness, a rawness to this place, undisturbed by man-made noise.  Even when the beach is no longer ours alone, the sounds are mainly of children laughing and shrieking with glee, as they play chicken with the waves.

 

 

In our cosy cottage, we are “off grid” – no mobile signal, no Wi-Fi with which to connect.  Even the payphone, set on a barrel by the dining table, is out of action!

 

It’s an odd feeling, being unable to check the weather forecast; to find out when various attractions open; to access email … to post blog entries.  We are but 188 miles from home, yet almost on another planet, in a different dimension. How reliant have we become upon the Internet and mobile phone masts for our instant contact with family, friends, colleagues, work … the world!

 

 

 

It feels strange, but this is a rare opportunity – and a respite to be grasped – to escape from normal life, with all its stresses, pressures, and responsibilities; to experience the moment, uninterrupted with the normal daily ‘noise’ of phone calls, text messages and email; and to enjoy the solitude together.  Time to watch the ever-changing seascape, and to enjoy a dip in the sea.

 

 

Time to see (as Deepak Chopra put it) “ the underlying web of connections in life—connections that we are often too busy to notice.” 

 

Ironic then, that I will need to seek a web connection of a more mundane sort, as I look for somewhere with Wi-Fi in order to post this Blog today!