Talking to oneself
There have been many times in my life when whole days have passed without a conversation with another human being. Days reduced to a quick thank you or enquiry in a shop or a passing hello in the foyer of a block of flats. These days, with messaging apps and email, we don’t need to have conversations. One thing I noticed during my first few months alone on my boat was that I had no chats. Just What’s App exchanges. Today, the sun is trying to poke through rain clouds, which are producing an almost biblical downpour here in East London. And it would be the perfect morning where in the past I would have picked up the telephone and had chats with friends. Now that’s reduced to a few quick text messages to plan or to check that people are OK. The good thing is that my partner works from home three days a week and although his conversations often are into headphones with people in other parts of the world, the sound of another voice on the boat is both comforting. Today he’s in the o