We all need to feel connected, in whatever way, shape or form. Having reached a (somewhat) venerable age a few months ago, I felt I needed to rediscover my love of cycling so I tickled myself by acquiring an e-bike. Ever since, I have left the car at home as much as possible. Small errands in town? Take the bike. Lovely evening? Go for a spin. For me, cycling, as well as walking, is a great way of connecting with the landscape around us and experiencing whatever the weather throws at us. And what a landscape and scenery we are blessed with in Pembrokeshire! Combine that with the marvellous weather we had this summer and you can imagine what joy the past few months have given me. The picture below shows me having a pit stop one late afternoon at the end of September. If anyone can tell where I was, be sure to let us know and I will tell you what the coffee is like.

They often say that mankind has never been so connected as in this digital day and age. And that is definitely what we see on the digital front: there aren't many guests arriving at Rosemoor anymore without a mobile phone, tablet or laptop.

One of the downsides - or attractions - of living in such a beautiful area as Pembrokeshire is that some aspects of modern life tend to arrive late here; Superfast Broadband being a case in point. We were hoping - and half expecting - to get fibre-to-the-premises, until unexpectedly the Superfast Broadband Cymru programme was shut down last December. Although we had already installed a WiFi Hotspot years ago, this offered less than what most guests expect nowadays, especially at our low download speeds (2.5Mbps max).

So we put on our thinking caps, and found out about the (few) options available to us. Rosemoor is not an easy place to provide digital infrastructure for: rural location, many buildings, not all of them connected, two feet thick walls, double glazed windows, and many many trees, to name but a few complicating factors. But we did manage to find a company that could provide us with the solution we needed. We are very pleased that, as of this week, we have fast WiFi Internet access in all cottages and the communal areas. And the step change in download speeds is really substantial! How did we manage to do it? By making use of microwaves, beamed to us from a mast on the other side of the valley, received by a dish here and then cabled through to all buildings at Rosemoor.

And what about people connecting with each other? We were often told, especially by parents, that they were actually secretly pleased that - although able to use WiFi at Rosemoor - digital use was not as all-pervasive as at home. Families talked and played more with one another than they might otherwise have done.

However, having said all that, I think we can safely assume that that is a minority of our guests. And truth be told, when we go away ourselves we always ensure that we have easy and reliable access to Wifi, to connect with friends and family, and with you while we are not in 'our own office'. We, like probably a lot of other people, do not use it instead of but in addition to: where and when shall we meet up?