dottyspots

Despite the very heavy rain (that only really kicked in as I was getting off the bus in the next village to go to the parent & child group I co-run with Kris the day went very well.

The group had lots of freeplay with finger painting and ‘making leaves’ on offer, followed by some lovely homemade ginger biscuits made by one of the mums, apple juice, banana and apple, followed by lots more play and finally circle time. Nin loved it again!

There was excited talk of future craft projects (amongst other things) and then I popped to the little bakery across the road to pick up some bits for lunch at Kris’.

I may have mentioned before that Nin has a habit of sticking her hands down my top (and up on occasion). Kris’ youngest watched this and stated, “Nin is sticking her hand down you top.”

To which I replied, “Yes, she does that sometimes.”

Nin moved off to the side and then Kris’ youngest clambered up and thrust her hand down my top too (blush), followed by the gentle,

“Thanks but no thanks.” and gentle removing of said child :0D

I hasten to add at this point that for those that don’t know, both Nin and Kris’ youngest are just two and almost two, so haven’t quite grasped the social niceties (or rather lack of) of doing such things. It was rather funny then.

It was obviously a day for affectionate climbing as later she wanted to sit on my lap next to her mum (who was on the PC), the bouncing was a little uncomfortable and Kris explained that she needed to be careful as there was a baby in my belly.

This caused quite some confusion…… lifting up my top she demanded, “I want to see the baby.”

“Well, you can’t, the baby is inside my tummy.”

“I can’t see it!”

“Well no, it’s under my skin.”

She did not look convinced….

I then kept catching her staring at my belly.

Hmmmm, that might lead to some very *interesting* conversations for Kris (LOL)

Was rather impressed that Erk remember that you could get syrup from trees and had a discussion with Kris and her eldest daughter about tree sap. Learnt that the berries which my mum didn’t know the english name for, but which are fairly useless for eating anyway are called crowberries and also the history of Fat Hen (the plant). I didn’t bring my knitting as with the rain and other bags that needed carrying it would’ve got soaked.

I hid from the pouring rain all afternoon until Rik picked me up and we went over to pick R. up from his nan’s, then home for a ready-cooked meal (slap my wrists - but I had just picked up frozen stuff from Kris’ and it was all frozen meat etc. as I generally cook from scratch , but that wasn’t going to happen tonight) and then catching up on over 500 e-mails (most of which I did delete - that’s what comes of not checking last night and also reading them this morning) and trying to get a few bits done, so I’m off to continue and chat on MSN.

Broadband is dead.

I don’t know what happened - I haven’t been fiddling, there’s no obvious explanation, but broadband is not working :0(

Soooooo, I phoned my service provider.

First technician suggested something, it didn’t work and so said he couldn’t help.

I rung off, tried a couple of things and phoned again.

Next technician tried different things (funny there were other alternatives when the last person said that there wasn’t) and then said that they’d exhausted their possibilities and that the tcp/ip needed to be reset and I should phone the Legion of the Damned.

Sooooo, I phoned them to be told the OEM in the serial no. (or whatever) meant they needed to refer me to manufacturer.

I phoned the manufacturer, who told me I’d been given the wrong number for that problem and could I phone a different number.

So I phoned the different number and then spent about 5 minutes how to spell most of my address (which was rather frustrating) and then had a painfully slow person who didn’t seem to register me saying I’d done something 3 times (!)

Over an hour into this the doorbell rang and two men stood on the doorstop with my new fridge. It was 12pm. I had been told that delivery would be after 2pm. Of course I hadn’t emptied the existing fridge (which even thought it was broken we were still storing things in) or the freezer (which was still working) and I hadn’t shifted the pushchairs out of the hall, etc, etc. because I DID NOT EXPECT THEM FOR ANOTHER TWO HOURS.

Naturally they weren’t interested in this and informed me that my phone had been engaged for over an hour and they had attempted to phone me to notify me that delivery would be earlier than originally stated.

Sooooo, I tried to explain to the *technician* that I needed to go and could I possibly have some sort of reference number to call back with.

The technician didn’t appear to understand this, despite me explaining it a number of times.

I gave up and spent the next 10 minutes trying to talk to technician, type and empty the hall/fridge/freezer with help from my eldest whilst Erk kept Nin upstairs.

Old fridge was picked up, new fridge was installed and I was left free to continue with the now INCREDIBLY annoying phone call. It went on for some time before I finally managed to explain that I’m pregnant and really had to take a break to go to the loo. I managed to get a ref. number, phoned Kris in a panic for freezer space to store my defrosting food, narrowly avoided bursting into tears, made a cup of tea, had a biscuit, sat down and phoned back to try again.

To be told I need to do a system restore.

hmph

This computer is only a couple of months old and I haven’t done a back-up (wail). I know I should’ve done, but I haven’t and I haven’t got any spare CDs till I can get to a shop that sells them (and also remember to buy them). The technician didn’t appear to understand that I couldn’t do a system restore till I could back up my files, so, as politely as I could muster I said goodbye and hung up.

I think my midwife might have had something to say about my blood pressure at that point.

I decided that I honestly cannot cope with the stress of trying to get the problem fixed and decided to phone the service provider to cancel broadband and reinstate dial-up until I’m in a place of tranquility that can deal with the incredible patronised annoyance of bloody call-centre technicians when I have to spell basic words like ‘avenue’ and have to wait 5 mins despite saying repeatedly that I’ve either got to where they want me to go or that I know that the ’start’ button is in the lower left hand corner of my screen.

ggrrrrrrrrrrrr.

So I am on dial-up, which is slower, but for the time-being is avoiding any further stress (or possible breakdown) from dealing with the broadband problem.