{"id":61,"date":"2018-09-12T17:27:14","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T17:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/?p=61"},"modified":"2018-09-12T17:27:14","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T17:27:14","slug":"time-out-off-the-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/?p=61","title":{"rendered":"Time out … off \u2018the grid.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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.\u00a0When the sea mist obscures the view, our world is even smaller.<\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0 When calm, the sound is a gentle, smooth, whooshing rush, as the spume surges up the beach, and then sucks back.\u00a0 With just a little strengthening of the wind, the taller, breaking waves crash, as they pound the sand and shingle.\u00a0 The former lulls us to sleep; the latter disturbs our dreams.\u00a0 I\u2019d love to be here in a storm, with the waves crashing against the base of the cottage, spray flying up to the bedroom window!<\/p>\n

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For hours at a time, there is a wildness, a rawness to this place, undisturbed by man-made noise.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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In our cosy cottage, we are \u201coff grid\u201d \u2013 no mobile signal, no Wi-Fi with which to connect.\u00a0 Even the payphone, set on a barrel by the dining table, is out of action!<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s an odd feeling, being unable to check the weather forecast; to find out when various attractions open; to access email \u2026 to post blog entries.\u00a0 We are but 188 miles from home, yet almost on another planet, in a different dimension.\u00a0How reliant have we become upon the Internet and mobile phone masts for our instant contact with family, friends, colleagues, work \u2026 the world!<\/p>\n

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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 \u2018noise\u2019 of phone calls, text messages and email; and to enjoy the solitude together. \u00a0Time to watch the ever-changing seascape, and to enjoy a dip in the sea.<\/p>\n

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Time to see (as Deepak Chopra put it) \u201c the underlying web of connections in life\u2014connections that we are often too busy to notice.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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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!<\/p>\n

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    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.\u00a0When the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talesfromtheboatshed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}