What a week so far... Whatever Next?

I feel like I have come back from a big void without access to the Internet, problems with SKY (again) and a feeling of what can go wrong, will go wrong!  It is amazing how much you miss the Internet when it isn't there anymore.  The past couple of days have definitely been a case of 'Whatever Next??!'

Whatever Next????

Yesterday, our wireless router decided it didn't want to route anymore (guess the hot weather disagrees with electrics too!)  All was fine in the morning but when I went to check my e-mails at midday.... nothing!

Sometimes the router gets knocked offline by other wireless equipment in the area so a restart isn't uncommon but yesterday after the fifth or sixth restart, reboot, reset and any other re- you could think of it became pretty clear that all was not well.

A call today to tech support at the ISP created more questions than answers (not their fault) as the router appeared to be working and connecting to their server but it wasn't sending the connection to our laptops!  Was it something I said?  I try to be kind to our equipment and talk sweetly to it when it appears a little under the weather but this blatant snub was more than a little frustrating!

To cap it all, this was the last of a run of bad luck - my SKY+ remote died last week (have you ever tried to watch SKY properly without a remote??) and a call to their customer services (??!) resulted in a frustrating morning trying to get a replacement from them.  Finally they agreed but it wouldn't be with me until today - a whole 8 days from the day I called!!  Still, at least the chappy on the phone was kind enough to inform me in great detail about the weather in India so maybe all the money I spent on the call wasn't wasted after all (@@!*!$%) 

I have been like a teenager on Valentine's Day ever since - running expectantly to the door when the postie arrives but every day was a disappointment.  Well, I could take it no more and called SKY again today to find out when this elusive plastic answer to my dreams would arrive.  

Today's calls went as follows:

• Call 1 - through to a nice lady in Scotland who couldn't understand either why the remote had taken so long to arrive.  I was put on hold so she could investigate.  A couple of minutes later : cut off!! AAARGGH!
• Call 2 - back to India (no weather report this time so don't ask) to be told that the remote control order had been cancelled as there was no warranty on this piece of equipment - even though, as I gently(ish) pointed out - it was less than 1 month old!!  Solution - I could buy myself a new one for £25!!!   Needless to say, this customer service representative probably now wishes he worked for someone else and that someone else had the pleasure of answering my call!!   A 15-minute rant about what I thought of their company and service seemed appropriate (oh, yes I forgot to mention that I was told that I could contact Customer Relations if I wanted them to override the cancellation - but wait, you can't phone them - you can write to them!) Result: Total frustration, anger and stomping like a toddler around the front room!

Did I mention that the remote control for our TV also doesn't work properly???  There was a lot of getting up and down just to change the volume, change channels, etc. recently - well, actually that isn't strictly true - it was more watching crappy programmes because they followed what we had been watching but just couldn't be bothered to get up and crawl infront of the telly again to find something else to watch.

To cap it all off, I also have a very painful toe at the moment - probably caused by the heat - I won't go into details but it is agony  and not very pretty to look at and definitely not helped by the toddler-tantrum-stomping this morning! (it is infact the most painful toe in the world as I keep telling my husband but he doesn't believe me and thinks I am over-reacting! HMPHF, the very cheek of it!)    I decided that God was against me this week and going back to bed and pulling the covers over my head seemed a good solution!  But then I would probably stub my toe on the bed leg and suffocate knowing my current run of luck!

And so to this afternoon....   I tried to turn the TV off using the broken TV remote - and it worked - twice (I had to have another go just incase it was a fluke)!  So, a challenge had been laid down - two more to go - well, can you believe it, the SKY one followed suit!

Surely, the Internet couldn't suddenly start working too, could it?   Well, as I am able to get online to post this, I guess the answer is clear!  Yes it could!!!  The toe doesn't seem to want to join in this miraculous regeneration but I guess I can live with that for now. (Still the most painful toe in the world....)

So, my message to the Little Devil who has been screwing with the electrics in our house for the past week, wherever you are, listen up...it was a funny joke for a while but seriously - stop it now!!

In anticipation of hopefully not being thrown into the cut-off-from-the-big-wide-world void again tomorrow, I will sign off before everything goes caput again!!

Surely this week has to get better (doesn't it??)....