Broadband!

Yes, I now have broadband at home!

On Sunday, I got a call from my ISP saying that BT had finally gotten back to them, and were recommending an engineer visit to see what the problem was. I could have told them that that was the necessary step some months ago (and, in fact, did). Anyway, they wanted to book in an appointment for today between 10:30 and 1. Oh dear. (With work being so crazy at the moment, there's no way I could arrange to have the morning off, and even a Saturday appointment is unlikely to be something I can meet.)

So, I accepted the appointment, on the assumption that Graeme could house-sit. But no joy, for he's now back at uni. However, Claire was good enough to say that she could house-sit. So that worked.

Anyway, this morning I delayed heading to work until Claire arrived at the appartment, so she could get the keys (and thus actually get in). At 8 o'clock, "Fairly Oddparents" came on TV, which is always good. Shortly thereafter, the phone rang. It was the engineer - would it be okay if he came early... in, say, fifteen minutes. Naturally, that would be fine. I hastily phoned Claire to tell her not to bother, but was too late.

Anyway, the engineer arrived, took one look at the wiring, and determined that the little brown box that the wire enters upon entering the appartment was no good, and needed replaced. He went to get the appropriate bits from his van, and as he was doing this, Claire arrived.

Ten minutes later, it was all done. In fact, had I not switched the TV off when the engineer called, we could have caught the last few minutes of "Fairly Oddparents". Broadband now works.

The most annoying thing about this whole experience is that I've known from the 18th of August that the solution would be to have an ADSL engineer from BT visit. I knew that that was what was required, and that such an engineer would probably know exactly what needed done almost immediately. And, of course, I was right. But trying to actually get this done was a nightmare of endless phone calls, missed appointments, and other nonsense. When if they'd just listened to me in the first place when I knew what I was talking about, this could have been done and dusted weeks ago. Sigh.

Anyway, the upshot of this is that I'm now empowered to start hunting for a permanent home, and at the same time reluctant to do so. Furthermore, I now need something new to moan about. I wonder what I'll choose?