Our poor tumble dryer has been sick for quite a while. In the run up to Christmas, it began to make a few suspicious sounds before showing off its next party trick of cutting out in the middle of a cycle.

This didn’t really impress anyone because it usually came with a burning smell that lingered. A service seemed to fix things temporarily but then we discovered that our model was one affected by the Hotpoint recall. It was then a case of playing the waiting game for a replacement and making sure that someone was available to babysit the dryer at all times.

Last week, it finally gave up the ghost. No amount of poking, prodding or pleading could make it turn and panic set in. As we await delivery of the new dryer, an addiction to the weather has arisen. I’m constantly checking to see what Barra and Frank have to say after the news and I’m checking the app on my phone in between.

There’s a constant compulsion to look out the window in case a spot of rain slips through all these checks because one downpour could threaten the chances of a clean, dry towel for after the shower that night.

Technology has us spoilt in so many ways and it’s only when something breaks that we realise just how vital a part it plays in life. I’m of an age where I don’t know anything but having a tumble dryer in the house.
In fact, my birth heralded the arrival of our very first as Mum wanted to spoil me with soft vests rather than air-hardened ones off the radiator. I’ve grown up knowing convenience. If I realise something is dirty then I know it can be washed and dried in just a couple of hours.

Developments have surpassed my natural ageing. When I got my first mobile at the age of eleven, I could never have guessed that in less than a decade I’d have upgraded to something unrecognisable. I started with something that could call, text and provide hours of entertainment with a pixilated snake.

Now, I have something sleeker in my pocket that can do so much more. It’s not just a phone. It’s my alarm clock, my diary and my watch. It replaces the need to turn my laptop on each day and offers more than a TV can. It connects me to the world at the tap of a screen and provides real-time news updates. I can get lost in a book or capture a memory in a photograph. It lets me check my bank balance as well as making it easier than ever to go shopping. It’s not just a phone: it’s a lifeline.
It’s not difficult to look around and see how life has become so much easier thanks to our electronics. In our household, that difference is all the starker.

The youngest in our house is now twelve and was born into a well-developed era. Kelvin was diagnosed with severe autism and even now still has severe language delay. There was once a time where he was wholly non-verbal but now he chatters away to himself and those of us who are around him regularly can understand most of what he says. It’s largely down to being able to look at the wider situation and applying logic and recognising the familiar lilts in his voice but that is something that has come with time. He’s a whizz with numbers but you might not think that if you test him verbally, especially given that his “four” sounds like “one”. I was so grateful for second year physics when he became interested in phases of the moon because otherwise there was no way I was going to guess that he was saying “waxing gibbous”!

Aside from us talking to him on a daily basis, the biggest thing to help his speech and communication has been the wonders of modern technology. As a young child, we used the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) to help him understand the world a little better. Everything in life was photographed, resized, printed out, laminated and stuck to a pretty coloured piece of paper. If he wanted milk, he could hand over that picture to let us know. If he wanted to go swimming, he could hand over a picture of the Lakeland Forum. The humble digital camera was vital for this because if I was in town, I could chuck it into my bag and have the picture ready that night. There was no worry about having a finger over the lens, not having enough film or having to wait a week for the photographs to be developed.

It was instant and that was vital. Things that are simple to you and I were a minefield of uncertainty for him. Going to the hairdresser or the dentist would have been an ordeal but thankfully those in our village let us in to take pictures. Kelvin could see the very chair he would sit in, the tools that would be used and the people who would be there.

Even now we still use these “Social Stories” that set out in detail what he can expect in new situations. The best way that I can explain it is to adapt it to a situation that we’ve all had some experience with: driving to a new place.

I know for me, I will go online and map it out, checking for landmarks along the way. I’ll know which towns I have to go through and I’ll have a note of roughly how many miles are between them. Even then, I’ll still have the satnav stuck to the windscreen just to be sure. That’s what alternative methods of communication mean for Kelvin: they’re his map through life. To be without them would be like putting me in the driver’s seat and telling me where my final destination was with no directions or signposts along the way.

As he’s grown, he’s taken advantage of the technology around him. There are times when he gets intensely frustrated because I don’t know what he’s trying to say and the next thing I know, he’s taken my phone out and typed out what he needed me to know.

If he wants a new game, he can show us a trailer for it on YouTube. He has an app on his iPad that speaks back everything he types which is great for people less familiar with him or when he doesn’t have a translator around. If he’s going somewhere, he can check out the website to make sure he’s prepared for all eventualities.

If he’d been born in my place, I don’t know how he would have coped. The internet is essential to him but when I was growing up, it knocked off if the phone rang and we could only go on for an hour in the evening.
Nowadays, it helps him feel secure in the world. If Mum has a ‘lightbulb moment’ at home over something, she can fire off a quick email to his teacher to let her know that there may be an issue affecting him. It could be that he’s taken an aversion to a certain colour or he’s developed a new interest that she could perhaps talk to him about.

The school diaries are all well and good but his teacher only has a few minutes to look at them while trying to look after all the pupils in the class. At least with an email, she can read it on her phone as she’s having the morning coffee.

Modern technology is such a blessing in this day and age when it makes life all the simpler.

When it fails, we realise just how much we rely on it and that’s why we always need to have a back-up plan in place. In our house right now, that comes in the shape of a three-armed clothes line.