Cool waters glisten enticingly under a diamond blue sky.

My time on this earth in this moment seems to hang balanced between the ebb and flow of the tide that rocks against our tiny beach... and the scream of the herring gull.

The evening breeze is warm upon my face and brings with it through my open window the aroma of seaweed and heather. But soon darkness like my feelings will sweep across the bay. It will creep into every crevice and coppice until it hides the moorland from the cottages and buildings that for centuries our family of farmers have called home.

As always to me the scenery seems timeless but as bright day becomes somber night, times have changed. The cow sheds lie empty. Occasionally a door will blow shut in the wind and the sound will echo through the vast enclosures where milking was done and a living was earned for my fathers family and his fathers before.

The track between the barns and house is grassed over. No cattle these days to churn it into an ankle deep muddy soup. The fences are falling apart and the hedges are reclaimed by nature. BSE and global farming markets have taken their toll.

I drag my gaze away from the view through my study window across the bay and focus on the flickering screen in front of me. Its secrets are a simple stroke away and the keyboard seems to wait expectantly for my command. It is a step I fear to take. Hardly daring to look, I slowly type in my login and password.

My thoughts drift back to the thousands of hours I have spent on this computer since the auctioneer came and took the livestock and farming equipment away. Long days passed quickly as the web pages grew and were uploaded to the Internet. The global highway seemed to welcome me. It teemed with activity and energy and brought the hope of work and employment even to this remote rocky outcrop of the West Country.

"Build some really interesting web pages and advertise products and services in between your content," the man from the government advisory service had said. "When people use the advertising links to check out the offers (free stuff is best), you get some money. Everybody is happy!"

It seemed like manna from heaven. I set to work immediately and upload after upload sped away into the night.

I still remember the excitement as the first visitors were recorded and the even greater excitement when they browsed and found things of value (usually free stuff) to take away with them.

Slowly as the days passed, more came to visit. The pages of my website became like fields in my farm. The borders were the hedges populated by links to advertisers instead of wild life. Slowly the commission began to accumulate - a cent here, a dime there - very occasionally, even, a dollar.

But as the cents and dimes grew so did the envelopes that slipped through my letter box and lay, demanding money with menaces, on my door mat. And the demands were not for cents and dimes but for much more. Electricity bills, telephone bills, even bills for food for my family and the largest of all, the interest on the loan from the Bank. When I had difficulty paying, the Manager increased the rate and imposed more charges.

Today is the last day, before tomorrow, then the Bank Manager will come. He has been before and will not come again. He will send the auctioneer next time .... unless.

I try to keep my hands steady as I press the return key to gain access to the commission figures from my advertisers. The screen flickers and the numbers slide into view.

1000 visitors since yesterday

My spirits soar. It's the highest number to have read my stories in one day - ever - and the result of hundreds of hours recently spent in a last ditch desperate push to promote my site to the search engines and increase the number of visitors!

I avidly search the page for the figure that matters, find it and, trembling, read the amount my stories have earned in the last 24 hours from the advertising ...10 cents.

The waters of the bay feel cool and welcoming. Tiny crabs scuttle across the ocean floor beneath me. I can swim a mile easily, then I will begin to tire. Two miles, and there will be no turning back. Better no letter - this policy will certainly pay and the farm will be saved. The salt of the water feels good on my lips, and the sea slides luxuriously past my body as my steady strokes take me onward.

Later in the evening, a tousled, fair headed little girl wanders into her Daddy's study and gazes at the flickering screen. She shivers. The room suddenly feels cold although the sun is shining brightly against the wall. As she closes the window, standing on the tips of her toes, she can just see the view to the bay outside.

She turns and gazes again at the screen. One day she knows she will understand properly all the numbers that have started to appear. Occasionally they go slower and she can just make them out, but mostly they are changing so fast she cannot read them.

Commissions earned from supported advertising: $0.10 $0.10  $0.10 $1.50  $16.20  $35.98  $120.45  $145.67  $300.23  $500.40  $800.65 $1,567.88 $10,436.00 $25,780.21 ...

Finally, the numbers slow, come to rest and the room is suddenly warm again. The little girl doesn't notice this but takes one more look at the big number at the end and smiles happily to herself, thinking:

'Daddy's finally found a way! He will be pleased ...'

Image: Winslow Homer, "Study of Waves," 1899.