January 2017
Well, I’m fairly behind with the blogs! I’ll play catch-up over the next few weeks. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, the internet was down for six weeks from mid-January. Secondly, I’ve been busier than ever, my to-do list was longer than a Leonard Cohen song, and things are only settling down now. Anyway, I’ll do what I can to bring you up to speed with life on South Georgia.
When was the last time you went without the internet for more than 24hrs? A week? We don’t have TV, mobile phone reception or newspapers so no internet means we are in the dark to the outside world other than satellite phone, which is expensive. It’s not unusual to lose the internet for a few days in a row here. My previous record was four days. But six weeks was interesting.
The first few days it’s annoying, you’re expecting it to come back any minute. Four days to a week is nice, it feels therapeutic and you start to get used to the idea. Nine days was the previous KEP record for no internet, there was a sense of achievement in passing that mark. Week two to three was back to being frustrating, by that point we didn’t really know what was going on in the real world, other than Trump had moved into the White House! Then it cycled back to being the norm again. It seemed to come in waves, frustration first, followed by apathy, and with each set the waves would last a little longer.
Ok, they should come thick and fast over the next couple of weeks. I’ll have February done before the end of this month and then March during the first week of April. I say that, but if the internet drops out again I may be gone some time!
Oh and Happy New year!