On my first day in the UK in four years I was jet-lagged and hungover. My wife, daughter and I were catching up with friends and family post-COVID, post-Brexit, pre-however it ends in Ukraine.

I fixated on a gadget on the living room table. “What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s a smart meter. It tells me how much electricity we’re using.”

It read £15.30 (about $27) for the day. Its owners had been out, picking us up from the airport. How had they used so much? Later, on a petrol station forecourt, I’d think about the fuel they had used coming to get us, and then I’d think about offering them some money for it.

The cost of electricity has soared in the UK. Likewise petrol, and diesel, and crisps, and milk, and beer, and shelter. There are statistics to show this, of course. Percentages that tell half the story, the input half; the half that triggers whatever it is that comes next.

It felt heavier than numbers could account for. There was a sense that things were happening to people. Some, other, things were happening around them. It wasn’t good, but what could you do? Nobody was angry, and nobody seemed to think it was about to get better. It wasn’t like this before, was it? Was it ever like this before?

I kept thinking about the electric meter. I remembered that, apart from the room we were in, all the lights were off.

We drove to London because the trains weren’t running. Oxford Street was busy. “See,” said London, “everything is normal.” I asked a man in a shop about sending something back to Australia. “We’ve been advised not to send anything abroad,” he said. “Not until we hear otherwise. We can’t guarantee it will get there.”