I don’t often grumble (no really, I don’t) but this last ten
days has been the worst ever.
Starting with the failure of my cancer medication, here’s how
things have gone since then;
My Dongle was running out….I don’t have Broadband – I’m a guerrilla
Blogger, a dangerous desperado flitting between a dongle and whatever free
Wi-Fi I can get my hands on.
For a couple of years I’ve been buying a dongle with three
months unlimited internet from T-Mobile but now they’ve gone, gobbled up by ‘EE’.
Of course they stopped it – now I ‘need’ Mi-Fi which isn’t what I want at all.
It won’t work for me and it’s much more expensive.
Sigh!
So I look on their website – there’s a dongle at EE but it’s
4G (don’t want it, can’t get reception here anyway) but even though it’s more
expensive and less data, it will work on 3G for 3 months.
At EE? “We don’t sell that any more”.
So I went to a well-known local electrical hypermarket whose
website said they stocked it; “discontinued”.
By chance I went to another branch of the same store, I’d tried
the same at EE – that didn’t work for me. They were sold out but the nice man there
looked it up for me and found that my local branch (tried them the day before)
had two left. He even printed of an internal stocksheet so that they couldn’t argue
with me.
So I went back and got one reduced to sell; they won’t be
doing that again in three months time. And it's useless.
Sigh!
We’ve got mice in the loft – a whole herd. I’m dealing with
that – I’m up there every other day.
Sigh!
We needed the central heating serviced – it’s long overdue
but I’ve been ill….we’ve all been ill.
So I get the nice guy in – that’s the one who doesn’t
overcharge and doesn’t make you do expensive stuff you don’t need.
It needed a new, expensive part. So I wasted two yes two whole days on that. Then when he’d gone, we had a flooded boiler – water everywhere
and I had to wait for him to come back and fix it.
Sigh!
Then we had a traumatic meeting with my Mum’s new doctor – we
needed a new doctor because I discovered that her old (calous, negligent,
uncaring) ‘family’ doctor hadn’t bothered to tell me for the last three years
that we were entitled to 4 weeks respite care a year (means tested but so what?)
which meant that for those three desperate years when I was caring for my Mum alone
and without a break, I could have had 4 weeks breaks/holidays/adventures a year.
4 weeks freedom.
I gave her a telling off that she will never forget and told
them she was never coming in the house again.
At least Mum now has a different doctor – if only we’d had
someone who gave a damn from the beginning.
How different these three years would have been.
Sigh!
By Friday morning I’d had enough and went out for a walk –
only I didn’t.
The front door wouldn’t open. It was actually broken.
I then spent two hours puffing and blowing, swearing and
sweating. I undid the panel, I WD40’d it. I hit it, I pushed it , I pulled it.
I even tried the internet.
And when I was exhausted (and I am stubborn, believe me) I
called in an incredibly expensive locksmith.
He gave me the knowing smile he reserves for silly
householders who get themselves locked in and then can’t sort it out for
themselves.
He sniggered at my WD40; “See, that doesn’t cure everything!”
He laughed at the panel I’d left on the floor.
Then, through our firmly shut door, I watched him puffing and
blowing, swearing and sweating for an hour. He hit it, he pushed it, he pulled
it. He swore some more.
In the end he even went to his van and got some WD40 and no,
it didn’t work for him either.
Two crowbars, a slimjim (and if you don’t know what that is I’m
not going to tell you) all the tricks of the trade and even more swearing and in
the end he got it open.
He fixed the minor problem (I could have done that if only I
could have got it open myself. We agreed that the 40 year old lock was still OK,
and as the new ones don’t last any time……we’d save the extra £200 he’d have charged
us to install a new one.
It was such a bad 12 days for us and as I’m now two fifths
through the five weeks I had untill my next and probably rather unpleasant
hospital appointment…. we’d planned out a really nice weekend.
Saturday morning and my poor old Mum collapsed with a seizure.
Ambulance called and our weekend was spent at Accident and
Emergency. She’s OK but that’s more than can be said for us.
It was Saturday night at 730pm when we found they weren’t letting
her out and there was nothing more we could do…..we went and had fish and chips
and then moved over to McDonalds where we had icecream and lavished ourselves
on their free Wi-Fi.
And my beautiful, wonderful girlfriend felt so sorry for me
that she gave me a pedicure and a foot massage, which I have never experienced
before.
And that made all the F+#@ing C@#P I’ve had for the last ten
days seem worthwhile.
Aaaaaaagh!!
By the way, I’m burning my shirt but that’s a story for
another day.
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
Home:
helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me:
neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
