The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson

The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson

A week unplugged 🐞

A landscape love note, ladybird swarms and The Monty Hall Problem

Jo Thompson's avatar
Jo Thompson
Nov 08, 2025
∙ Paid

We tried something new this week.

Before we get to that
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No wifi, no phones. Just the landscape.

When we arrived last week at the low-slung whitewashed house popped in a cleft of the north Devon coast, my first instinct after checking the house passed the soft furnishings test1, wasn’t to look at the view or breathe the sea.

I got out my phone.

view out of a cottage window with gingham curtains

No signal. Not even one bar. I tapped at the screen anyway, something clearly needing its fix: that little rush when a notification appears. Instead, I had what was now essentially a camera, and the sound of wind and waves instead of notification pings.

The cottage sits in a valley below Hartland Point on the northwest coast of Devon, where a stream meets the Atlantic. Next stop Newfoundland. No neighbours, no WiFi, no route back to the digital world. We both knew what we were in for, my partner and I, but it did feel strange to begin with. What if something important happened? What if someone needed us?

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