What to do when…

So the broadband has gone down. First feeling is frustration, then annoyance — the why has this happened to us, today, gushed reaction. Urrrgh! What to do?

What to do? How about…throwing a few things around…

Computers comply and boot up, follow orders, except when they need that all- important broadband connection. And nowadays that mean all the time. The days of dial-up, the bleeps, sighing tones, long delay while a wee scale like a thermometer indicates the level of connectedness — or non-connectedness as was mostly the case, are gone. The world of connectivity has moved on.

Then, you sat and urged it on, patience wearing thin to annoyance, an urge to kick the computer to make the wee line move. This was the point when the effort became too much and computer gave up the ghost, meaning you had to embark again on the process or turn to something else. If luck and technology were on your side, you might get a connection, probably slow when changing pages or sites, leaving you to wander off to make a coffee in the hope a miracle would occur whilst you were away.

…you could take a deep breath to calm yourself and sing a few well chosen songs…

Looking back on those not-so-distant days I suppose the system is so much better, though those of us in rural areas still suffer slow connections and glitches. On television we have adverts for 4G in London, while here we still feel ourselves lucky to have 2G, albeit with very patchy coverage. Recently, when late at night needing the help of our car breakdown service, sitting between two major supermarkets in a main Borders town, a signal for the mobile phone couldn’t be found, not even when husband strode up to the highest point he could find and waved his mobile around as if trying to catch a falling star. He might as well have been. Eventually he had to fall on the goodwill and help of supermarket staff.

To the non-tech amongst us one lot of cables looks much like another.

Cables and connections have been checked with no obvious problem found. Our internet service provider, when contacted by phone, says it sounds like the router. It’s only a year old, but a new one is obviously needed. Only when we buy and connect that will we discover whether or not it’s the old router that was causing the problem.

First action would of course be to go online and do some research — what’s available, what’s new, what’s considered the best buy, who’s selling at the keenest price? But that option isn’t open to us. We need reconnected. We’re having withdrawal symptoms without our constant doses of news and information in all its formats. So a new router is a priority.

…or we could watch the birds and their antics…

Trouble is the boiler is leaking oily water,

Gushing forth.

soaking the floor around it,

Water…lots of water.

and making a thudding alternating with a banging noise, a one appliance band.

Wind, lots of wind band

We don’t want to think how old it is as it usually works fine — more or less. We’ve been trying to get the engineer to come for over a week, but it seems a glut of people with boiler problems are keeping him from us. Yesterday we were told he would be here this afternoon. So we now have a tussle between need for boiler and need for broadband.

Maybe we could go for a spin and leave the problems behind…

Hooray, the boiler engineer’s van has just pulled up. So as he sorts boiler I sit down to look forlornly at my computer screen and find myself writing this. Then, we can have lunch and drive up to Edinburgh in search of a new router. Fingers crossed it works and disperses our frustration by allowing us back online. How sad is that?

Cake! now there’s a good idea…

Later

Back home with router, and a carful of shopping. Son is connecting up new router while I make a meal and look forward to getting back online. Phone calls indicate problems. The new router isn’t working any better than the old — that is, not at all. Engineer will come out tomorrow, though of course there will be a charge for that.

Naughty but nice, though I still feel frustrated…and guilty…

The next day

Engineer here this morning. The fault, it appears, is in our wee rural exchange. A temporary repair has been made, but it will need a proper fix later. Meantime, we’re back on line — with the old router, after having forked out for a new one and awaiting a bill for the engineer for a fault we had no control over. What do you do when such things happen!

A hug…that’s what’s needed. A big, all-embracing hug. Sigh of satisfaction.

 

 

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