Two days without WiFi

The Drawing Board, just now

It feels as though I've been living without a limb for two days. Actually, it's more like a sensory organ is missing. I have been living without WiFi for two whole days.

A massive electrical storm woke me very suddenly in the early hours of Sunday morning. I imagine there was a bang or a crack from very close by, perhaps inside the house. I listened to the thunder and watched the windows light up - it was probably the loudest storm I've every experienced. It passed. I went back to sleep.

On Sunday morning I couldn't make the radio turn on. This sometimes happens - it's an early DAB model and it sometimes gets confused. As for so many things nowadays, the remedy is to turn it off and on again. At that point I noticed that there was no power to the radio. Nor to the bedside light.

OK, adding two and two together, I bumbled down to the fuse box. I'm so glad that the old one was replaced (three and a half years ago already!) because three or four of the switches were tripped. This usually happens when light bulbs blow and it's just a matter of switching it all back on, but the kitchen circuits didn't return. Then I remembered that they'd installed a subsidiary fuse box in the new kitchen extension, and that had tripped as well, but unlike the main board it wouldn't reset itself. With everything turned off I could reset it, and switching things on one at a time it became clear that the problem was with the washing machine.

At that point I was simply relieved that the fridge freezer was working and that I could still boil the kettle and cook breakfast. I haven't yet got round to pulling the washing machine out to try and trace the fault, because after breakfast it became clear that there was no Internet. I can replace the three blown light bulbs and go to the launderette if necessary, but no Internet! Looking at the router it appeared dead, no lights coming on at all. No Internet! I couldn't find an alternative power supply to try, but I found an old router - I just wasn't sure it would be compatible with the new ISP and couldn't face the effort of trying it out. I could still get online via the data plan on my phone, and I had planned to spend the day at an event at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre, so that's what I did.

It turns out that I can manage for about two days without WiFi. Considering I've only just started using the new TV I was surprised to miss the facilities it provides, particularly BBC iPlayer for TV and Spotify for music (but I've got films on DVD and the old hifi for CDs so it's been fine). I didn't need the Internet for dressmaking so at last I've made a start on Lola's dress, although very soon afterwards I managed to break the fancy needle that I need for stretch fabric so that has to wait until the shops open again.

I listened to audio books, did a bit of work in the garden, replaced all the blown light bulbs, and went out to look at new lawn mowers. I inherited the mower from the previous owners of Lola Towers which makes it at least 15 years old, and although the motor seems fine, I don't think the blade has been replaced in all that time. Then I realised that I could just replace the blade - I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before. I turned the mower over to have a look at the blade. It is held on by a large bolt, and I don't have any spanners. Perhaps there's a tool? If there is, where would it be?

I'm not sure I can convey how astonished I was firstly to find within seconds the very tool I was looking for, and then actually managing to undo the bolt with it. I took the old blade down to the local DIY store but they didn't have anything that matched it. Using the magic of the Internet (thank you phone data plan) I have now ordered the exact part. I can hardly believe how well this is going so far and feel certain that there will be some insurmountable barrier to success when the new blade arrives. We'll see.

So  buoyed by success, I finally felt mentally tough enough to phone the ISP about the dead router. And it was fine! The nice man working in the call centre on a Bank Holiday immediately identified the moment when it died on Sunday morning, and asked me about the storm, but didn't raise any issues. He not only arranged for a new router to be sent out, but also encouraged me to contact them when it arrives so my days without Internet can be reimbursed.

That's when I decided it was time to seek out some WiFi. So I went to Pub Next Door and asked for a half of Saddleback and the WiFi password. Which was when I discovered that their Internet had been destroyed at the same time as mine. The beer was very tasty but my quest continued, and I have now been settled for a couple of hours at the second best pub in Leamington. They expressed the right amount of horror at my plight and have been very hospitable. I have bonded with the bar staff over an obscure track by The Cat Empire and with other customers over the Blue Peter annuals on the pub bookshelves.

So despite the WiFi calamity it's been quite a good weekend so far. I've got tomorrow off as well so still time to replace the fancy sewing machine needle and do a bit more dressmaking before going back to work.

Offline

Groombridge Place, June 2013

The week following Lola II's visit is a busy one. Work then badminton club #1 on Monday, work then a badminton match with club #2 on Tuesday, work then choir practice on Wednesday, work on Thursday then...

It’s a nightmare. Thursday night: no Internet at home. I’m off to badminton club #2 so I don’t mind so much, but when the Internet hasn’t returned on Friday night, it becomes serious. Mr A was at his work’s Christmas do on Friday night, which involved bowling, dinner and an overnight stay, all paid for (that’s the private sector for you) and I was looking forward to an evening to myself. I had various online jobs lined up, among them blogging and creating the family calendar, which is a fairly long and tedious process (although well worth it for the results in the end). So I had to phone the ISP.

Part of the pain of investigating the issue is that the Internet wifi router is in Mr A’s office, which is full to the brim with ‘belongings’. I imagine Mr A and I use different words to describe the contents of his office, but even aside from that, the overhead lights do not work and it is dusty; very, very dusty.

First of all, the operator in the ISP's call centre did not recognise our phone number. The address and post code did not help either. I started to imagine that our account did not exist, which would explain the lack of service, but when I fished out a bill (thank goodness I had printed the bill, otherwise things would have been even more difficult) and quoted the account number, my existence was confirmed.

So then: the usual tests on the router, for which I had to wear a head torch (no overhead light) and take time out to sneeze repeatedly (the dust) combined with picking my way through the ‘belongings’. And then find the phone (sneeze), to discover there was no dial tone. Although Mr A had recently managed to replace the batteries, I could not trust just the one handset, so had to unearth another (sneeze), but still no dial tone. So it’s the phone line that’s faulty, and I was given a timescale of two to four days for repair.

What can you do with no Internet? I could use my data plan via mobile phone, but the screen is so small and I can’t bear to type on it, plus the blogging account is different from my email account so there’s lots of logging in and out and trying to remember passwords. “I know,” I thought, “the pub next door advertises free wifi! I can go there!”

Of course it is Friday night, one of the busiest times for the best pub in Leamington, but I managed to find a spot to set up the laptop – unfortunately not near an electrical socket, so I had just an hour or two while the battery lasted. It would be rude to take advantage of the free wifi without buying a drink, so I treated myself to a pint rather than my usual half pint, on the basis that it would have to last a couple of hours. And then the computer wouldn’t connect to the Internet. Rebooting, ‘repairing’ the connection, ‘resetting the IP adapter’ – nothing. The battery was pretty much exhausted by the time I had finished trying, so I had no choice but to finish my pint and go home, still Internet-free.

So I resorted to sitting on the sofa and watching a film instead, which was fine but didn’t get the calendar done. On Saturday, it meant I had lots of time to clean the house, and I’d rented another carpet cleaning machine, this time checking that the plug was as it should be. Mr A collected the cleaned and shortened curtains, so they had to be adjusted and re-hung, and the carpet cleaning machine taken back to the rental shop, and then I couldn’t stand it any longer and went to the library for two hours to use their wifi for the bare minimum of tasks - uploading the last blog post, Facebook, downloading podcasts, and some cash needed transferring between accounts.

No Internet service on Sunday either, but not too bad because I was off to a lunch in the occasional series hosted by H&B oop north. Travelling by motorway on Sunday morning wasn’t bad at all, and I arrived early in order to impart some of my diabetes dietary wisdom. Unfortunately for the other guests, this meant that their attention was repeatedly drawn to the carbohydrate content of various snacks. It was a pleasure to mingle with such a pleasant group of people, though.

On my return – still no Internet. Things were getting desperate – I’d cleaned a lot of things in the house already, and eventually I was forced into writing Christmas cards. I don’t think I’ve initiated the Christmas card writing session in living memory; it’s one of the things that Mr A does. It made me think how useful it would be if the Internet were to disappear at the time of the Tax Return. Then we watched another film. Still no family calendar.

Monday – no Internet. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting any progress over the weekend, and the four days I’d been quoted wouldn’t end until Tuesday evening. There was badminton anyway, so I had no problem occupying myself. And by Tuesday, when I was bracing myself for a difficult conversation with the ISP call centre about why it hadn’t been fixed, it was fixed.

But there is no time for family calendars on weekdays; there’s barely time for blogging, and catching up with the four days missing from my online life. It will have to wait until next weekend.