Domestic Woes, Mostly
On the grand principle of good or bad things going in threes, the hot-water tap in the kitchen is refusing to work, the curtains in both bedrooms have fallen down, and my internet connection has become patchy or worse. At first, I tried to ignore the tap thing, on the grounds that heating water in a pan and only doing the washing-up once every day would be Ecological, but it is beginning to annoy me and I my have to get a Proper Man In. The plastic bits holding the curtain rail in the upstairs bedroom disintegrated at once, and I dealt with that by hanging one of the roof blinds down instead of across, and moving back into the downstairs bedroom, where the curtain rail promptly pulled out of the wall altogether and fell down. The modem connection on my computer has been failing at intervals for a couple of weeks, but could be restored by disconnecting and re-connecting everything, but it finally got so bad that I phoned the BT helpline. Not a good idea - I wasn't given a job number, so had to go through all my details, and the whole ritual of checking the damned thing every one of the three times I called. At last, yesterday evening, I managed to get them to promise that an actual human person (not in a call centre in India) would come round to look at the wretched thing this morning. So far, they haven't turned up, but when I re-connected everything this morning, just to check, it all worked perfectly, so now I am reduced to hoping it will fail again before they get here.
The only advantage of this has been that when it is working, I beaver away at actual paid work and when it isn't, I've had time to actually start the Christmas puddings. On another cheerful note, I notice that the Chelsea Physic Garden's Christmas Fair is on this Sunday. If the summer one is anything to go by, it should be excellent, and I will make sure to get some raffle tickets this time. They even promise a heated marquee.
ETA - The BT man turned up, pretty much exactly as promised, and even rang in advance to warn he was on his way. Of course, the line turned out to be perfect, but he was very nice about it, and suggested that if I was getting further problems, I might try reloading the original software that went with the modem.
The only advantage of this has been that when it is working, I beaver away at actual paid work and when it isn't, I've had time to actually start the Christmas puddings. On another cheerful note, I notice that the Chelsea Physic Garden's Christmas Fair is on this Sunday. If the summer one is anything to go by, it should be excellent, and I will make sure to get some raffle tickets this time. They even promise a heated marquee.
ETA - The BT man turned up, pretty much exactly as promised, and even rang in advance to warn he was on his way. Of course, the line turned out to be perfect, but he was very nice about it, and suggested that if I was getting further problems, I might try reloading the original software that went with the modem.