Chatting is not a doddle on Skype

IT WAS easy to talk when we all lived under one roof and the disorder of family life had a tidy, house-shaped outline drawn firmly all around it.

I could feel the snug enclosure of that outline sometimes, like at mealtimes, when the kitchen was noisy with chat, or going upstairs at night, when I’d sense the children sleeping in their beds, their breathing palpable in the darkness. Back when we all shared the same toothpaste, chatting was a total doddle. If we wanted to talk, bicker, shout or kiss, we could. We just did it. Any old where, any old how.

But now, since my children started scattering across continents, it’s different; there’s family life but no house-shaped outline to box it all in. And if we want to chat, we can’t do it any old where, any old how. We have to do it on Skype — or the “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t” app, which is a much better name for Skype, if you ask me. And chatting is not a total doddle. Not on Skype.