Ring, ring ????

I`ve now got another problem!....
My internet connection had been cutting in and out all morning and went off completely. I was waiting for a phone call as I had a friend coming to stay for a few days and they were going to let me know about what time they`d be here. So as I hadn`t heard by dinner time, I picked the phone up to try it and and found no dialling tone.

I tried all the phones in the house incase one hadn`t been replaced correctly, but nothing. Looking at the Phone book for a number to ring BT I followed first their instructions to disconnect every phone from the socket and then replace them one by one starting with the main phone socket. Still nothing.

So I rang the number, got the message saying it was expensive to ring from a mobile - great help that, what else could one do if the landline phone wasn`t working! I hung on and then the automated voice said from a mobile ring a different number and gave the number, so I dutifully rang that. But that then repeated almost the same and gave yet another different number to ring if one was ringing from a mobile. I obediently did it.

Again it was answered by a machine and gave options, I pressed 1, then more options, 1 again, and again, and again, in the end it informed me that they were very busy and I was in a queue. I could either remain in the queue (and I thought it was going to say ring back later) but, to give them their due it said one could give them another number including a mobile number to ring me back on, within an hour. So I did that.

They rang fairly quickly, more questions and then they checked the line and found there is a fault on the network. They will get the engineers to work on it and it should be done by 3 working days!. That means Friday. But, to be helpful they could divert my calls to my mobile if I wished. I said yes please and gave them the relevant number.

I`ve just got my Mum to try it, as I`d had no calls, and.... it didn`t divert to my mobile! My home phone gave a couple of feeble dings and stopped and nothing else happened. So, I made another phone call to them, followed all the same automated steps, and fairly quickly a person rang me back, checked all the info they`d got, tried to set up the Call Divert and found that the type of problem with the line is preventing them being able to set it up! She`s going to try a different way in the morning and ring me then. I wait to see!

But, funny enough after the first phone call to them, the Broadband connection has come back and I`ve had a connection all the rest of the day and evening...

Plucking up courage

Well, I`ve plucked up the courage, and I`ve done it.

After weeks,

....no, after months

.......well, to be truthful after a couple of years really

I`ve done it!


Well, I`ve done really the easiest part, I`ve still got the most difficult part to come and I`m not looking forward to that.

What on earth am I talking about, you`re probably saying to yourselves.....


Actually probably nothing out of the ordinary to the majority of you, but to me a big thing.....

.... I`ve booked myself a holiday away for September! Oh, not abroad, I`ve no wish to go abroad, but up to Yorkshire.

I`ve not been away for a holiday for the last three years. We used to have a regular annual holiday, until my mother went into where she currently lives - but she is the big problem - she doesn`t like and doesn`t want me going anywhere. Doesn`t even like it when I go to the city just 26 miles away occasionally for work. Yet she`s perfectly well looked after where she is, with people on hand 24/7 to care for her.

So after all this time of agonising with feeling I wanted to go away and have a break, but knowing how she`d react I haven`t done anything about it. Now, I`ve decided enough is enough and I`m going this year. And, I`m going to do something we`ve never done, and that is go Self-catering, which I think will suit me better.

But..... I`ve yet to tell her, but I won`t do that until much nearer the time....and doing that is something I`m dreading.

Amazing perfume

My favourite flowers are now in flower in the garden - Lilies of the Valley.

I took my scissors and cut a small bunch of them to bring indoors to enjoy. It always amazes me the strength of perfume that comes from one very delicate stem of such beautiful tiny white flowers.

And one this small vase of them, - yes, ever since a child I`ve cut small bunches of them and put in this little green glass vase - fills the whole room with perfume, its quite amazing.
Another of the wonders of God`s world and creation.

Confused viewing

I wonder if anyone else experienced the same confusion as I did last night?...... I began to think I was going a bit strange and hearing things.

It was about 5.45 p.m. and whilst sitting eating my jacket potato with lashings of butter, I was idly watching the tv for company.  It had got to the break in the programme on ITV for adverts when suddenly I thought, those words and jingles seem strange with those pictures.   I watched more closely, yes, they were definitely advertising the delights of a certain slimming breakfast cereal, but the picture was showing a cat eating a bowl of cat food and then the tin with the brand name on.   (I`d better not advertise here, had I?).   I continued to watch and all through the adverts the sound was different to the pictures!  

Then it was back the last quarter of the programme I`d been watching, and the peoples mouths weren`t moving in time to the words they were speaking.    Was it me, was it my eyesight??

As the programme finished and before the next adverts I heard - at least I thought I heard them say, showing the Anglia news desk, `and next the news from `Calendar`.    Did I hear that right, I wondered.

The adverts did exactly the same as before totally different pictures to sound.  Quite amusing at times!!

The local news started - on the screen were the words of Anglia News and the presenters in the studio, but the commentary speaking just didn`t belong.   The voice was saying, "here I am standing on the docks at Grimsby", but the picture was showing a chap at a sports stadium.    

Yes, I was watching Anglia pictures and hearing Yorkshire news.   Was it my TV I wondered.    So, I rang my mother, a few miles away, she put her tv on and got exactly the same!    That was a relief, it wasn`t my set.   I then decided to try something else - tried the other channels they were all ok.  Then I switched it from the Analogue aerial to my Sky dish for the ITV..... and..... no problem! the sound and picture matched and were Anglia region. - switched back again to the other and the problem still went on.

Very odd.