I was going to call this post something like ‘a***holes’ but then I thought it might vetoed or reported as mature or whatever WordPress do when they want to slap your wrists.
This is me. Or a representation of me. I’ve been slow with my posts. This post explains all.
Well, it explains something.
I’ve been having one or two bijou problemettes with my broadband. This is partly down to being in a rural area – tough – and partly down to living in a stone house. Granite does not help. And then we had a big power cut.
Router died. Power cut? Not sure. Not completely dead, but lost range and speed. That’s fine, have new router in waiting, allegedly with greater range. Faster too.
Install new router. New router not install OK. Ring wonderful ISP. ISP got mail problems so very busy. Grrrrr. Leave message. ISP ring me back (they do that, they’re wonderful), get me online. AOK.
Still can’t get decent signal in dining room. No range. New router huge and – remember – chosen for good range. Fab speed closer to router, though. ISP say possibly down to granite walls between me and router. I say ‘why now?’ they say not sure and has speed always been good in dining room. Have to admit generally crap. Settle for using laptop in front room, the one I tend to use for spinning etc, as opposed to the one where I sit in front of the television watching The Great British Bake Off with my mouth hanging open.
This means moving old mahogany table as can’t get chair under it without lifting flap, and flap at weird angle anyway due to bodged repair in past, so surface not level. That’s OK, have small pine desk upstairs with sewing machine on. Will swap.
Empty desk. Get desk downstairs.
Try to move table. Table heavier than white whale with a weight problem and about as co-operative. Am by myself but I can do this, all right? All right?
Drag table to bottom of stairs. Drag table upstairs a bit, table slides downstairs at speed, flaps open, leg frame separates from top, acquires extra momentum and lands first. Top pushes it into hall table which falls over. Am in Laurel and Hardy film.
Swear mightily.
Hall table fine. Fasten ******* leg frame back on to ******** top with completely inauthentic twenty-first century screws.
Tie flaps in place with overlong washing line. Drag table upstairs step by ******** step. Amazingly do not trip over washing line. Stick sewing machine on table, empty desk drawers full of sewing crap into shoe boxes, find basket to take previous contents of shoe boxes. Sewing room looks like Wrath of God.
Desk OK downstairs, but not got chair. Try kitchen chair, OK but not right. Try spinning chair, better but needs large cushion. Must make large cushion – er, that would be in the sewing room, except can’t get into sewing room. Downstairs room now looks odd due to modern pine desk under 19th C ship painting, but tough ****. At least doesn’t look as bad as sewing room.
I’ve simmered down now.
It took me three hours to sort out the house, though admittedly I did take a gin-and-very-old-fags-because-I’ve-stopped-smoking break (they were disgusting and no temptation to start again).
On the plus side, my broadband’s working beautifully.
Beangenie 
Oh I sympathise. We have problems with the wifi which works in the dining room but not in the lounge. The former is actually further away from the router and has to travel through more walls so we have no idea why that is so. It will annoyingly get enough reception in the lounge to tantalise and tease you into using it and then it’ll kick you out just as you go to send a tweet or email. Hubby is just finishing his OU degree work for the year and it is driving him potty. Lots of huffing and puffing and a few choice words last night.
Who’d have thought baking could be must see tv? Loving it and oh the drama last night.
Drama and blood! (Now everyone who isn’t watching it is wondering what on earth we’re talking about…)
It is sooooooo infuriating. As more and more things are done digitally, half the country is being left behind (and it’s not just us in rural areas either; I’ve a friend in Tottenham who seems to be in a digital black hole too). I couldn’t move to another ISP; I need help too often – plus my lot are in Cornwall, so they understand. Have told them I think they’re a bunch of surf bunnies with boards leaning up against office walls, but apparently not.
Seems like swearing was fairly universal last night!
The strange vagaries of technology. Argh indeed. We’ve finally got around our miles-from-the-exchange-in-the-middle-of-nowhere issues with some almost 21st century technology, which is quite pleasing. Now it’s the wifi that doesn’t match the external speed. Most peculiar, and still to be investigated.
Sewing room, ahhh… how nice. I have finally cleared a tiny side desk in our study for my sewing machine, and resolved not to keep taking over the kitchen table. Apart from when making curtains, a pair of which are still looming. Must take deep breath and get down to them one weekend soon, before the daytimes are too drear and gloomy to see what I’m doing.
Glad you’re back on board after all your wrestling!
Ok, I thought my broadband was odd… I can almost see the exchange from my house – it’s at the bottom of the hill, hidden behind the builders’ merchant, but the line obviously goes for a gentle stroll round the whole village and stops off for a cup of tea before winding up at my place. Bit like the postman.
Sewing room isn’t as grand as it sounds – it’s otherwise known as the spare bedroom, and I’m in real trouble if I don’t have compliant guests. Apparently it can be quite spooky, waking up in an unfamiliar room with a dressmaker’s dummy looming over you. Pah.
I like the sound of sewing room though. :). Actually most of my fabrics/yarns have snuck into our spare room too, since we’ve run out of storage space in the study with all our geekiness. Waking up in the shadow of a dressmaker’s dummy does bring all sorts of second-rate horror films to mind :D.
Yarns are such aproblem. Well, they are if you’ve developed a spinning problem too, because not only do you produce more yarn (agh), you also end up with fluff and fleeces. I have a box room which is full of them, and I store sheep in the loft. Oh, Ok, I don’t, but almost. And there’s even a fleece in the garden shed, aka old ty bach. That’s because it’s not been washed yet and there’s no way it’s coming near the house in that state. Every time I want my trowel I bang my head on wool. I think a 12-step programme may be called for…
The things we do for a good signal. My ISP provides an excellent router, but their rates are sooo expensive.
Look on the bright side, some people move house to get good broadband. At least, you’ve only had to move furniture. Although that table really wasn’t keen on going upstairs, was it?
I’m in the same situation – but I depend on my broadband for work, so it’s vital. Too vital to spend time waiting for BT to decide that they know what a Mac is, anyway. Been there and never, ever going there again!
That ******* table ain’t coming down again, I tell you that. Hm – wonder if I can still open the futon out? Oh lordy…
Me too! No ADSL here I have a satellite dish connection to an antenna somewhere – not sure where. When the wind blows, and it often does here, the signal is not so good. Our house walls are Tuffo about 60 cm thick, so signal sometimes works better going up through the ceiling but not through two walls to the next room! But how would I live without being able to communicate? It would be so hard. Good to share a rant sometimes and I’m glad you’ve ‘solved’ the problem. Very envious of the BBO; it’s not available here – Oh how I miss British television! Christina
I’ve had the ‘temperature inversion over the bay’ reason for poor broadband here one time, but not the wind. Probably just as well as we’re perpetually windy. Ahem – the weather is. The weather… I’ve also found the signal penetrating floors and ceilings much more easily, probably not surprising as they are made of wood and the walls aren’t. Hang on, some of them are – oh, who knows? Indeed, how would we manage?
I do sympathise with you on the British telly front – I’ve had, at various times, to depend on French television and it makes me want to stab people. Especially pretentious gits and/or flashy philosophers. Only course of action is to switch it off and throw set through window.
I had just clicked onto your post when Elder Daughter rang and in the end I had to switch the laptop off as I was beginning to laugh (sorry!) so much – but at least she and I were discussing last night’s GBBO, which was equally dramatic! It’s intriguing to know that lots of us garden bloggers are also glued to that programme (sorry Christina!). This series is particularly good as they all have disasters, like the rest of us. Glad that you and your house and its artefacts have survived your near spontaneous combustion!
Glad you enjoyed it… must admit that looking back, it was quite funny, especially as it descended into table-assisted slapstick. At the time… hmm. Let’s just say I must have looked like Catherine after she threw her strudel dough on the floor. (Sorry, Christina!)
I’ve just had to go and ‘borrow’ next doors extra long washing line to tie round my waist to stop myself bursting from laughter! Sorry.
I too sit watching the Great British Bake Off with awe and wonder. I can’t cook anything more than toast without detailed instructions!!
I know I was a stand up in the late 80s / early 90s, but I never really did slapstick. Maybe I missed my vocation… (Or maybe I can only do slapstick when using horrible Victorian furniture as a feed. That ******** table is on borrowed time. Or it would be if I felt I could get it downstairs again).
And now I’ve managed to burn out the motor of my strimmer strimming the meadow. I am going to live in a small dark hole somewhere without any modern technology. And eat cake. OK, that would be raw cake mix but I can live with that.
Just open the window and chuck it out. It will then break into lovely sized pieces to add to your firewood pile!
You have no idea how tempting that is. But I spent today at a client’s where I have to work on a hideous PC – I left the dark side of computing in 1997 – and I now have a much more urgent target for a game of window discus (even if it wouldn’t burn so well). Grrrrr.
Oh, brilliant! Well, not so for you, but thank you for cheering me up over breakfast! Husband was on the phone to China and I was desperately trying not to laugh out loud or choke on my cereal… I failed on both counts!
Glad it cheered you up – actually I did see the funny side myself, in the end. After I’d rebuilt the house…
Still chortling over here too. Sorry for your pain and all that as well! Life without broadband is now close to impossible.
I couldn’t work without it. Alarming, really. What will we do when Armageddon comes?
(Well, I will be burning old Victorian tables, obviously, and may even be in a better temper…)
I know exactly how you feel down to the last nano-byte and I laughed and cried in sympathy. However my new satellite broadband is now working as is the very expensive new WiFi router which is a good thing as I’m about bankrupt. I suspect if a politician dares to come to the island to pontificate about super-fast rural broadband there would be rebellion and a whiff of cordite in the air.
I do have a small suggestion, no guarantees it will work but if I’d not just bought a new router I’d have given it a try. There is a widget gizzmo called homeplugs which uses your electrical wiring system rather than WiFi signals or ethernet cables. So as long as the room has electrical plug sockets you can have a connection to your network. Allegedly it is a lot better than WiFi at transmitting data.
Yes, if any of those beggars comes here and starts talking about fast rural broadband they’re in for a rough ride too (Owain Glyndwr, where are you when your nation needs you?). Our MP seems to spend a lot of his time complaining about it too, so hopefully he’d be the one leading the charge. It does make me pig sick when I read about all the flash-bang-wizz things you can do online, while here I am rejoicing if Amazon loads in less than a minute.
It is a joke, really, but I have to say it’s slightly less of one now I’ve rearranged the entire house. Homeplugs sound absolutely fascinating and I shall investigate immediately!
I don’t often stray to this side of your great bloggy divide … you’re more entertaining here than you are on ‘the other side’, and that’s saying something!
We have fallen in love with a house in the wilds out past Ruthin, are you telling me I will be cut off from the world? (No great emergency as yet, purchase depends on a lottery win I fear!)
I did um and ah about which side would respond best to spleen venting, and settled on gardeners (though there’s a lot of overlap). After all, us gardeners are used to dealing with great steaming shedloads of crap, and that’s rural broadband for you…
But it’s patchy, so don’t assume Ruthin would be the same. It’s a heck of a lot closer to the A55, for instance, and that means civilization. Round here they seem to think we’re all fifth-century druids and will be grateful if we’re allowed to access sillychantsandspells-r-us.com once a fortnight. Grrrrrrr. When I win the lottery I’m going to Shetland. Great broadband as well as everything else. Mind you, I may have to buy a ticket first…
Ah yes, the joys of rural living and broadband speed. Or lack thereof. We just had yet another 5 day outage thanks to a high sided vehicle swiping a telephone pole carrying 20 lines, including ours. Better than the neighbour being right when he told us that someone took an axe to it…
Thought this was going to be a tale of how you wrenched your back/shoulder/elbow heaving *expletive deleted* furniture around by yourself, so am somewhat relieved… Hope you sort out table/chair/picture disposition to your satisfaction and don’t have to get in your sewing room for a while… I am mercifully prevented from doing all the stuff I want to do in the house that would render large areas uninhabitable by a constant flow of visitors!
It’s &665!!eupoiceio298383c!!!!! (Actually, it’s been much better with the new router, I do have to admit.)
Now I’ve got the flamin’ table upstairs, I’ve realised it’s not much cop as a sewing table because of the flaps. I am going to see if I can find something better at local auction rooms, and if I can, I have every intention of taking an axe to it. This may, of course, be the only way to get it downstairs. Or I could throw it out of the window.