5: Hello World 2000–2004
Chapter 5 of my 2005 PhD Thesis ‘A Journey of Integration’
In memory of Hilary Kay Doran 1958–2017
Hello World 2000–2004
In September 1999 I moved to my first solo home from the small townhouse in the suburbs of Nottingham where I had lived with my two daughters until they went to university. My new house stood on a hill on the outskirts of a large village, right on the border between Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. It had a large garden and was a minute’s walk from rolling sheep wolds corrugated by medieval strip farming. I had the whole house thoroughly wired so I could log on from anywhere, then took my laptop outside and sat with it under the apple tree. I moved my bed to the open window and slept beneath the stars, soothed by the lights of planes en route to the local airport. Excited by the thought of living alone and in the country for the first time in my life, I celebrated by making sure I occupied a blended wireless environment of nature and technology where I could connect to everything whenever I wanted to.
As I relaxed into my new rural home life, my work environment became tougher. The trAce Online Writing Centre had been running on an Arts Council grant which expired late in 2000 and all my energies had to be diverted to finding ways to generate income, which meant that I had to give up…
