Shenanigans

I realise I haven't blogged for quite a while now. The one thing I really should have blogged last week was that Kevin and I were moving to Coventry on Thursday, and would be without internet access for a whole week, since apparently that's how long it takes BT to internettify a phone line once it's been installed. Useful.

We had plans of surviving on dialup until then, only for the bare essentials (which means the actual bare essentials, rather than the bare essentials of all email plus blogs plus newsgroups plus investigating link logs plus checking on IMBD what other films that actor's been in, and so on). However, on Friday as we were waiting for BT Man to come and install our phone line, Kevin realised with puzzlement that BT hadn't phoned him by then to tell him what our new phone number would be. He phoned BT to find that there was a problem with the underground cabling and as such we could not get a phone line installed. Until. At least. The 17th. Of this month. (And another week after that for broadband.) Have pity on us!

(In case you're wondering how come you're reading these words when I have no internet access, I had the genius idea of going into uni and seeing whether we could use the computers there. Apparently we can :-))

Thursday wasn't without its own minor disasters either, the biggest of which was my mum discovering through a fairly large electric shock that our metal cooker ventilation hood was actually live. The electrician who finally came out the next day was puzzled when he found that even unplugging the hood didn't stop current from going through it. Eventually he discovered that whoever had screwed it to the wall initially had managed to put a screw right through the cable and into the live wire going to the oven.

Let's say that again: the current going to the oven (a fairly hefty appliance) was also coursing through our large metal cooker hood, unshielded by circuit breakers or anything of the like. I'd really like to know who "tested" the electrics in this place.

Aside from that, Kevin pulled a muscle in his back on Thursday whilst lifting heavy objects, and spent most of the next few days in bed, occasionally suffering agonising twinges or pains when he did something reckless like sitting up, or rolling onto his side. On a not entirely unrelated note, I think we need to buy more paracetemol.

Naturally this meant that Kevin couldn't help his dad with lugging a) our new television or b) our new (third-hand) freezer up our stairs. Luckily the AFP support network came through and we enlisted the help of an afper who, handily, lives practically down the road from us. Also handily, he was able to lift the freezer entirely on his own and without apparent effort. I have the feeling it would have taken twice as long with a healthy Kevin in his place :-)

Today has been (or will be, or willen haven be (I'm typing this on Sunday, on my disconnected computer)) desperate, urgent internetting at uni, and also shopping since we've run out of proper food. It's also Kevin's birthday, so there will be cake later...

You shouldn't be fooled by all of my moaning though - the flat is really really lovely (I've joked to Kevin that, with my preferring a house to a flat, I'm impressed that I managed to find a flat with a front door and letterbox, stairs and a loft :-)). It'll be even nicer once I finally manage to unpack everything and stow away the cardboard boxes currently littering every room.

I'm so happy to be here, finally not having to be apart from Kevin as a matter of course. If I can get used to the current lack of internettiness, I can consider my life nigh-on perfect at the moment :-)

Truckle-load

I have a bit of a problem with cheese.

Well, not all cheese. Truth be told, I don't like most cheeses. No blue cheeses. Nothing with too strong a flavour. I even avoid a lot of cheddars, for being too mature and crumbly.

My cheese repertoire ranges from Gouda to Gruyère, from (Red) Leicester to Leerdammer, from Emmental to the cheese that's madE backwards. And that was pretty much it until Kevin introduced me to Port Salut, self-described as "delicious creamy French cheese". This was almost a year ago, and since then I have nibbled and gobbled my way through many dozens of portions of such. It is my cheese of choice, my cheese of addictive habit, and we endeavour to always have some in the fridge.

Now, it's not the cheapest of cheeses at £1.39 per 150g portion, but we make do. Imagine our delight, therefore, at entering the university's small supermarket last week and finding that all Port Salut had been reduced to 99p. (Current theory is that when I went back down south at the end of term, they panicked at the sheer amount of Port Salut they suddenly weren't selling.)

We bought a truckle.

Immovable objects

Twenty-six days since we moved in to the new flat.

Twenty-five days since our phone line was supposed to have been installed.

Thirteen days since we actually acquired a phone line.

Still no broadband, because (last we heard, six days ago) BT had not yet acknowledged that the phone line existed, in order to allow us to get ADSL services to be added. As Kevin says though, no doubt next month we'll find ourselves billed for the presence of the non-existent phone line.

If it were almost any other company than BT we'd probably be on the phone to pester them night and day, but with the stranglehold that BT has over this country we'd need to harness an irresistible force to have even a hope of making any difference.