‘What a novel idea ~ to talk to each other’ or ‘A Truly Social Media Free Holiday’

For two weeks every year I like to leave Twitter, Facebook and my blogs behind me and have a total break. I’m getting more and more content with this as the years pass. At first I panicked. I wrote blog posts to schedule automatically and tweets to appear through Hootsuite. You can do all of this if you:

a) pay an expert to do your marketing for you

b) have the time to do so

or c) just cannot bear being silent for a couple of weeks or more.

I used to ask ~ Will my followers get bored and desert me? Will I have to start again when I get back? Will the world still turn without me?

It is strange for the first couple of days. I am tempted to turn on the internet using my smart phone. You may laugh here but I have never had Facebook or Twitter or even email on my phone. Too intrusive on real life. The man in the phone shop raised his eyebrows when he saw that I hadn’t even discovered the App Store.

I resisted temptation for the first couple of days ~only just.

By the third day I started to relax ~ to forget the pull of all of these time sucking activities and then I noticed something which made me smile and frown at the same time.

At restaurants while hubby and I were learning to talk to each other again we noticed whole families who sat at their table glued to their phones, sharing the occasional joke or two they’d read from friends back home. On buses and on the beach too! By the end of the holiday we were even feeling quite smug about it.

In fact, we enjoyed talking so much that we have vowed to turn the TV off during supper each night back at home, to sit opposite each other and chat about our day. It’s been so refreshing for our communication skills and our relationship as a couple. You should try it.

What a novel idea ~ to talk to each other!

The Trials and Tribulations of Island Communication and Transportation -Now and Then

The greatest difficulties my characters experienced, if they worried at all about the outside world, was lack of communication and the difficulties of transportation. On Twitter during winter months, I occasionally see people sat at Southampton Airport, stuck because either Alderney or Southampton or both are fog bound. In the late nineteenth century some ships waited in the channel for over 24 hours for the sea fog to lift, because the waters were too treacherous to attempt the crossing with poor visibility.

My Book signing on Alderney

When we flew over to Alderney in July 2009 for the main launch and book signing of ‘Riduna’ we experienced other difficulties.  To our dismay the books had not arrived and so a stressful time ensued, of phoning my publishing company, various departments of the courier company, the dock at St Peter Port Guernsey and Auringy the airline to Alderney, in the hopes of locating the exact position of the books on their journey to Alderney. Finally a promise was made to have the package delivered by the Saturday morning, only a day late, so we had a frenzy of activity placing posters up around the island announcing the postponement of the launch.

The islanders were totally unsurprised by the delay, as they explained later, even with Express Courier the item is first taken on the ferry to Guernsey. Here it is cleared at the docks before being taken to the airport. Even then its transportation on one of Auringy’s small Islanders from Guernsey to Alderney that day is by no means guaranteed, since it is then dependent on the numbers of passengers booked on to the flight and available space!

As it happens everyone pulled out the stops, as it were, and the books arrived on the original day planned. We received a warm welcome and news reached all the local publications including The Alderney Press, The Journal and The Guernsey News.

Difficulties have their own rewards

If you place the problems we encountered back in the late nineteenth century, I’m sure you can imagine the difficulties in communication and travelling. I believe that Alderney is able to maintain and protect its unique beauty, peace and culture partly because it is not as accessible as its sister islands of Guernsey and Jersey, but those who do visit often find themselves returning time and time again. It is a place to relax and recharge batteries, ready to return to stressful lives back home. Many like me fall in love with the island and are reluctant to leave it. Alderney has recently been described as one of Britain’s best kept secret holiday destinations by The Lonely Planet, so ‘if you fall in love with Alderney like I did, don’t tell everyone will you! ‘

Would be great if you have any funny stories of travel to share!