3G Isolation Woes

I’m fairly certain I could never survive in isolation. By isolation, I probably mean anywhere without 3G coverage. The chances of me retiring anywhere outside a major city are less than zero.

Unless I lived in England. I have several friends here who have ‘moved to the country’ from London, and as an Australian it conjures up images of moving to Tiboburra, but they mean places like Surrey. I have a friend who ‘moved to the country’ from Fulham and on a good trip it takes her 34 minutes to get to London. That’s my kind of ‘moving to the country’!

Anyway, our road trip in Scotland a couple of weeks ago was a real test of my inability to cope with isolation and I failed. Miserably.

Scotland is probably an extreme case because pretty much unless you are smack bang in the centre of a major city there is no 3G coverage and unless you have wi-fi you are cut off from the internets. It’s dreadful (if you’re me).

It caused a few arguments with Rob because we’d be driving through remote areas of Scotland with me saying “how the hell do these people function with no internet, how do businesses operate, I don’t get it” and at the start of our holiday Rob would say “but look at this scenery, don’t you think it’s kind of nice to have no mobile phone so you can unwind?”.

“NO, it’s awful, why would I want to do that”.

My whining went on for about half a day longer before his genuine bit of pity for me turned to “get a grip, Steph. We are on holidays, who gives a shit if you don’t have reception? What the hell do you need it for anyway, just wait till we get to the hotel tonight and you’ll have wi-fi”.

“Because, Rob, OBVIOUSLY I need to Instagram my photos of where I am, how will I catalog them if I don’t upload them at the location I took them?”

I know … first world problems.