Falling Foul of the Times.

I have several categories of woes running consecutively at the moment, but let’s stick with the simple one for now: Technology.

On Wednesday my car threw a wobbler. It didn’t actually break down, but it isn’t comfortable having the revs surging and fading rhythmically while you’re trying to overtake somebody on a steep hill. It isn’t. When I rang the mechanic about it, he said he ‘didn’t have a clue what that might be.’ And bear in mind that this is the car I got to replace the Renault which was so infested with gremlins that it spent most of its time scratching its own wheel arch.

Also on Wednesday, my computer threw a wobbler. That one seemed to have sorted itself after several re-boots, but read on.

Today it threw another one after installing the latest version of Adobe flash player. That one seemed to have been solved with some careful thought and a couple of phone calls, but it still isn’t happy.

Yesterday, after much monitoring with thermometer and clock, I was finally convinced that my new fridge freezer (the one that was sent to replace the first new one that was faulty) isn’t working as it should. I have an engineer’s visit booked for Monday.

Are you getting the picture here?

Now, it could be that I’m simply going a bit off my rocker. It could be that the fridge freezer, the electric kettle, the toaster, the computer, the landline phone, the mobile phone, the vacuum cleaner, the TV, the shower unit, the beard trimmer, the lawnmower and the hedge trimmer didn’t all break down and have to be renewed over the past two years. Maybe I just imagined it all. But maybe there’s another explanation.

All the positive things that have happened to me lately have been to do with nature – the blackbird which came clattering onto the bird table and stared me in the eye while I was putting food out, the little bat getting himself a companion, the hedgehog which toddled past me on the lane, the badger which ran past me in the field etc. All the negative things have been to do with technology.

So could it be that my gradual evolution into a hobbit is causing my matrix – my personal version of external reality – to be undergoing a subtle shift, one that conflicts with the energies of things electronic? And could that mean I have a choice to make between becoming a complete recluse living life as a hunter/gatherer, or retreating back into the world of the technology-obsessed modern human and giving up being a country boy?

That would be a difficult choice to make, but it seems I’m having trouble finding a middle way.