Then this morning on the beach<\/span> I noticed this bit of communication<\/em><\/span> –\u00a0<\/p>\n
I know – it’s been\u00a0 a couple of months since I posted – sorry dear reader, but I will only plead a heap of excuses which can be summed up\u00a0by saying\u00a0time, opportunity and inclination did not come together these past few weeks – but here I am, back and communicating again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This past week I have been working on a new piece which I hope I will feel OK about as a QN entry, closing date looming fast.\u00a0 While I work I have been listening to Jane Austen’s <\/span>“Emma”<\/span> <\/em>for the\u00a0umpteenth time.\u00a0 Now\u00a0I know it almost by heart, and to hear it read by the late Prunella Scales makes it especially good listening.\u00a0 On one level at least it’s really all about communication.\u00a0 What a vital role communications play\u00a0in human life, this case C18 England – \u00a0the coming and going of letters and notes,\u00a0observations, personal comments, gossip, scheming, interpretation, being mistaken….\u00a0\u00a0Letters were shared with family and close friends, and everyone knew who had received letters from whom, if not their actual contents – but no matter there – fuel for speculation and gossip anyway.\u00a0 Everything was discussed <\/em>endlessly in minute detail.\u00a0 The deliciously slowly unfolding\u00a0events\u00a0in the lives of inhabitants of a small typical\u00a0C18 English village were moulded daily by communication of all kinds, expecially ‘letters’.\u00a0 From so far forward in time, looking back many of the communiques seem trivial to us, but it struck me how\u00a0little has changed, really.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/span>I realised this as we sat around the fire the other evening over a glass of wine, catching up with an old friend – no friend like an old friend, the\u00a0comfortable experience\u00a0of being with someone almost as familiar as a family member.\u00a0 DH showed us something amazing on his laptop, and our friend was occasionally\u00a0checking his\u00a0FB messages, commenting on mutual friends’ recent posts, mostly trivial – and as my desktop was just an arm’s reach away, I too logged in to my email to quote something I received from a mutual acquaintance earlier in the week.\u00a0 We shared family news face to face, \u00a0since I had seen\u00a0several offsprings our visitor knows.\u00a0 If our old friend had known the distant long-lost cousin I just\u00a0heard from (much to my delight) then I’d also have brought that into the conversation too.\u00a0\u00a0 You’re right !!! that all sounds sooooo Jane Austenish – you can never have too much of her imho, but perhaps when “Emma” <\/em>finishes I might move onto something more modern – a Jodi Picoult or Henning Mannkell maybe.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then this morning on the beach<\/span> I noticed this bit of communication<\/em><\/span> –\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/lost-keys.jpg?ssl=1\" "\\"lost")
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