There is a fairly common movie genre in which someone lives incognito and everyone around them is unaware of their previous role. They might be in the witness protection programme, a grass, ex-CIA or MI6, a hitman, special forces, a chemical weapons expert, a paedophile, a serial killer or an arachnid super hero. They remain largely unnoticed and inconsequential until one day, often by accident or some bizarre coincidence they are called back into action or unmasked. The film evolves with their loss of cover and subsequent display of innate skill or tendency. Sometimes people who have been hunting them stumble upon them. If you believe in films there are hordes of ex-secret agents who have faked their own death living among us. I could be one. In general, these protagonists are off the radar at the start of the film narration. They are incommunicado. Soon the past catches up with them in some way. Then, like the ghost of Christmas past they come visit.

Last night I had a short dream snippet which started with a radar / sonar screen the type you might have on a submarine. It was green and the display was an electron beam irradiated old-school green phosphor. The linear sweep arm went in a circular fashion clockwise around the screen. There were no bleeps to indicate targets. The operator had a headset with microphone and earphones.

He said, referring to me, “he must be off the radar. There is no signal!”

The officer in charge said, “keep looking he must be out there somewhere!”

The dream then showed various people looking for me and my contact details. They could not find any because they did not have them. They were surprised that contact details for me were not readily available. Nobody had a ‘phone number. It was not clear why they wanted to contact me.

The snippet ended.

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The dream reflected the fact that many from my past have not got contact details for me. I am not in contact and therefore incommunicado is an apt descriptor. Quite why anyone would want to contact me is a bit of a mystery.

Anyway, here on the compound I lifted the mole traps this morning. Last autumn there was mole sign down near the pond and although I caught several there, one remained at large. We went into winter with an expectation that I would see it again in spring. Now like Luca Brasi, it sleeps with the fishes. There may be more down there, the underground gallery is very extensive and because it is damp there are many tasty worms. The traps just outside my office were only set on Wednesday. I caught one there too. Because it was fresher it was less aromatic. The territorial males cause a mole migration, so we may have a few more signs soon.

The Hirondelle or barn swallow nest is in the corridor outside the back door.  This is the third summer it has been there and the second time we have had a successful nest. Two years ago, there were five chicks, I can count four today. They will fledge soon which means we can get the pressure washer on the guano pile. They will take up temporary home on the TV ariel with their parents. They are currently attacking Gandalf the stray cat and mobbing the magpies. Their aerial acrobatics are a pleasure to see.

The measurable reality is that we live on the compound with very scarce external contact. The wife has a few “Teams” chats. I have no social interaction. There is no capacity in which I am the purveyor of any professionalism. When COVID first struck, I did not know how severe it would be. I resolved to offer my services mixing ethanolic hand gels, should the need arise. My chemistry superpower could be put to good use. The measurable reality is that the world goes on outside the compound with little input from us. We do not impinge. Given the tree count in the garden we are also carbon neutral according to one of the ways these things are measured. Unless something unmeasurable and unknown or secret is occurring virtually no-one reads this blog. Less than a thousand views {not us} in a year.

Whatever I say here is quantitatively insignificant and relatively inconsequential.

If a tree falls in a wood and there is nobody there, does it make a sound?