Disconnected

It's amazing what you can get done on-line these days. We're already checked in on our flight and holding our boarding passes, and we've not even been close to the airport.

But I'm sort of thankful that we're about to be disconnected from the web of the world as this far place moves itself halfway around the globe for the next month. There's no computer at either Mum's or Maureen's and no local Internet cafes we've ever been able to find on previous missions. We have to travel to central Manchester to get webbed up, so posting is likely to be intermittent.

Noi insists I take my mobile phone with me, though. Actually it's really hers, one she passed to me when she moved on to something that I gather is thought to be better for reasons which escape me. I was proud to be able to able to boast of not carrying one up to two years ago, but the dreadful things are pretty much unavoidable in my present place of work simply given the sheer size of the premises.

It took me up to the twenty-third of those months to discover what the phone is most useful for. Pretending to be engrossed in checking what is on it is a very effective way of keeping people off bothering you in those moments when you'd rather be alone with your thoughts. There's a small joy in using the hooks that connect us to become blissfully disconnected from it all.