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 But the former British nun, who has pledged to live the rest of her
life in solitude, has another routine that sets her apart from her
society-shunning brethren - she has to update her Twitter account
and check Facebook.
Unlike other hermits, such as a man discovered in 2013 living in a
wood in the United States having spent 27 years without any human
contact, Denton has embraced the Internet age.
"The myth you most often face as a hermit is that you should have a
beard and live in a cave, none of which is me," she said, sat in her
simple red-brick house near Market Rasen, a Lincolnshire village
ringed by rolling green countryside.
The 52-year-old is not as profligate on Twitter as most of its users
- "tweets are rare, but precious," she wrote on her profile - but
for the modern-day hermit, she says social media is vital.
"Things like the Internet make hermitage possible in a very
practical way these days," she said. "I can do all my shopping
online and I can communicate with friends."
"So I am a hermit but I'm also human," she added, clad in a dark
tabard with a large silver cross hanging from her neck.
Denton said she had sought out solitude ever since she was young,
one of six children raised in a crowded Catholic family. What she
valued most then was being able to play in her bedroom alone.
"I remember practicing for hours by myself throwing a ball at the
wall," she said.
In 2002, she resigned from her position as deputy head teacher of a
school in Cambridge and moved north to Lincolnshire to begin life as
a hermit in an ex-council house with a garden big enough to allow
her to grow her own food and keep a few chickens.
"A hermit is a person who chooses to live alone, and does that with
the intention of, in some sense, finding God," said Denton, who
spent time living in a monastery before teaching.
She made an official commitment to life-long hermitage in 2006 at a
special Catholic mass.
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Denton, whose LinkedIn page is immaculately maintained, earns a
living through calligraphy and by designing and producing bespoke
stationery and cards, although she says she doesn't attract "hoards
of customers."
She also writes for a church publication about some of the trials
and tribulations of hermitic life, such as her regular attempts to
defend her garden from moles.
Earlier this year, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a
form of cancer. "The possibility of death is always there," she
said, her head shaved bare following chemotherapy.
Due to her presence online, followers started a campaign to raise
money for other cancer sufferers and social media helped her find
support. She said this proved how valuable a tool the Internet is
for those living alone.
But her diagnosis has not changed her need for isolation.
"It was interesting when I got cancer because you make a bucket list
and my bucket list was to spend my life as a hermit," she said.
(The story fixes typing error in paragraph 13)
(Reporting by Neil Hall, Writing by Angus Berwick, editing by
Elizabeth Piper)
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