Friday 18 October 2025: Pandemonium 

And here we are. Another week has flown by and October is already almost over.

We had an early start on Wednesday. Not only was the garden man coming back for one last tidy around, the new internet was coming too. One said they’d be here between 8:30am and 1pm; the other didn’t give us a time. The internet guys were here first, but what should have been a fast and straightforward job turned into a mammoth session.

First of all, we hadn’t moved any office furniture, because we’d asked for the new modem to come in at windowsill level. The guy who showed up to do the work said that was fine, if we had an electrical socket close to the height of the windowsill. The problem wasn’t going to be the modem, it was the junction box, which has one of the shortest electrical cables in the history of man.

So we had to move me out of the office, lock, stock and barrel, and move my desk and 2 chests of drawers out of the way just so the internet guy could get on his hands and knees and fit this junction box. All well and good, but when he came to test the signal, there was nothing. Either he’d done something wrong, which he assured us was not possible, or there was something wrong at the pole. That’s the telegraph pole that every single engineer or salesman who came to the house couldn’t believe was there.

Yup, our ancient phone line was still connected to an equally ancient telegraph pole, which is why we think the signal kept dropping every 2 or 3 minutes inside the house. Not only was it on ancient technology, but the telephone wire that came from the pole to the house was seriously sagging.

So off he pootled, now with a mate, as he wasn’t allowed to climb ladders. (I think they must have to be specifically trained now to climb ladders, because even I thought that ladders were fine so long as there were 2 of you.) They examined the connection at the top of the pole, but it wasn’t that. Apparently, the brand-new fibre-optic cable that was fitted only last Friday was damaged and they had to instal a new cable and take that one down.

They did all of that and tested the connection again, but there was still a problem, and the guy who’d turned up first was vowing he never wanted to come to our house again if there was a future problem with the broadband.

Well, first of all I admonished him for saying such a thing to a customer. Had we been horrible to him? No. Had we treated him badly? No. He just hated the job already. So I told him that the attitude should be that the broadband is so good, it won’t ever have any problems. 

When it turned out he was keying in the WRONG password (he was pressing a zero instead of the letter O) (come on, we’ve all done it), he at least had the decency to blush. When everything was up and running and tested and working, he had the gaul to ask the poet to give him a good review on Trust Pilot. I was in a different room by this time and I called out that he was NOT to give him a good review as he never wanted to come to our house ever again.

We all had a good laugh and he was less stressful when he left than while he was trying to do a job that just wouldn’t go his way. And now we have internet speeds that are faster than the speed of light…or that’s how it seems. Especially because my desktop is plugged in to the new modem and not relying on wi-fi. Yay!

Meanwhile, the garden man returneth. First of all to collect the greenhouse he was taking away, along with some corrugated raised garden bed frames. And then to do his tidying up and give the grass a good cutting. 

And when he’d gone, we had to put my desk and drawers all back in the right place.

By this time, I was shattered and I hadn’t done any work. So I had an hour on the editing at least, and then we went out and did the shopping before grand-doggy #1 gets here again later today.

So, hopefully our Friday will be better than our Thursday, and our weekend will be even more so. I hope yours is too. I’m certainly looking forward to at least a lie-in.