wild at heart

Dave has set up something called ‘teamspeak’ on the laptop in the kitchen (yes of course we have a laptop in the kitchen; don’t you?) which enables both him and Mat to demand tea from upstairs if they can hear that I am in the kitchen. Although really it is, I think, to facilitate the playing of computer games like Rainbow Six. You can be washing up and suddenly a fuzzy, disembodied voice from the corner of the room will start talking about shooting terrorists. In this setting, and in the absence of background noise from the game itself, the whole thing does sound a bit feeble. Oh, Mat and Dave are killing terrorists in the office again. Wonder if they want a cup of tea.

This amazing technology has also enabled Rhys, in Cardiff, to overhear a completely banal conversation about squash taking place between me and Mat in our kitchen.

In order to get away from all this, I walked home (that is, back to Ingrave) through the woods. I do like the woods. I’d come back as a tree if I reincarnation were an option; I’d become one tomorrow if the technology was available.

Unfortunately, you do also get people in the woods. And rather a lot on this occasion, judging by number of vehicles in the car park. Everyone, it seemed, was here, including the Grays School Media Arts Centre, or so the legend inscribed on a blue van suggested. Throughout the walk, I could hear a distant jabbering of shrill voices; then, on the home stretch, I looked behind me to see a small army of chattering dwarfish figures, all dressed in bright colours, hot on my trail. Was this the Grays School Media Arts Centre? I fled before they could make me part of a workshop.

Later, back at Copperfield Gardens, I conquered my technophobia to the extent that I did actually have a conversation with the laptop in the kitchen, which was channelling the spirit of Rhys. ‘It’s no different to a phone really’, said Rhys, attempting to defuse my awkwardness. To me, however, it was more as if the dishwasher had just started talking to me, in a Welsh accent. About David Lynch.