Terry is in training for our trip to Florida. He ate this tonight. Good job we’ve got that gym membership…
Things Terry Ate: a gigantic burger
Forever Amber
Personal style & lifestyle blog from UK fashion blogger Amber McNaught
Posted in June 2009 …
Things I Did While the Internet Was Down1. Worked on my novel. Remember my novel? Huh. Me neither, apparently. Wordcount when I started working on my novel this week: 13,175 words Wordcount as of rightthisveryminute: 11,752. (Although some of those don’t actually count because they say things like “Chapter One” and “Chapter 2″ and stuff. ) So. Obviously something went way the hell wrong there. I mean, I realise I’m no expert, but, you know, pretty sure the wordcount isn’t supposed to go down with each new writing session. The problem is… well, it’s me. I’m very… edit-y. And I know! I know editing-as-you-go is EXACTLY the thing They tell you not to do. I know that! I’ve read the same “How to Write a Novel” books They have. But I just can’t help myself. If I’m not happy with something at the start of the book, I can’t write any more until I’ve gone back and fixed it (trust me, I’ve tried. Can’t.). So that’s what I did, which is why I ended up a couple of thousand words down. I thought up some more words while I was in the shower this morning, though, so I will add them in soon and I will have even MORE words. Some of which I may even like! 2. Worried a lot about my upcoming flight to Florida Yes. Two weeks today, people. And I thought I was OK with it this time. I mean, OK, I’d woken up in a cold sweat a couple of times thinking, “OMG, I’m not going to Florida AT ALL, am I? I’m going to my fiery, or perhaps watery, death!” but I was mostly OK with it. “Planes are very safe,” I told myself. “They hardly ever crash!” And then this happened. And since then, it’s been pretty much all I can think about: we’re talking nightmares, freak-outs, the lot. I know it’s irrational, so no one needs to give me the whole “It’s the safest form of travel!” thing (Seriously, I don’t think I know ANY scaredy fliers who are actually ever comforted by that statistic anyway. Especially not right after a major air disaster.) but knowing it’s an irrational fear doesn’t make it any easier to stop myself worrying about it, so, yeah, fun times! Especially for Terry and my parents. (Also: there is almost always an air disaster right before I’m due to fly. Almost always. I’m starting to think I’m some kind of Harbinger of Doom to the air travel industry…) 3. Tried to do yoga You know what’s really boring? Yoga. Seriously. 4. Cleaned the house. My house was really clean while the internet was down. Now? Not so much. 5. Hit the “refresh” button on my browser repeatedly while muttering “Is it back yet? How about now? NOW? I wonder if it’s back yet?” It wasn’t much fun, but hey, it passed the time. 6. Half-heartedly weeded the garden. Like, really half-heartedly. In the sense of “I was wearing a skirt and nice shoes at the time, and I didn’t want to get them dirty”. Note to self: buy house with no garden. Or with live-in-gardener. Stupid garden. 7. Went to St. Andrews. It looked like this:
Rubin also got a haircut that day. He looks like this now:
Then, in the evening, the internet would come back up, and I’d have to try to cram a full days work into a few short hours. Which was just as much fun as it sounds, really. And that was my week of No Internet. Luckily for us, it seems be working again, and thank God for that, I say: I don’t think my novel would have survived another couple of days! Virgin Media once more my mortal enemy: no internet for five days(Note: this was actually written yesterday, but wasn’t posted because – hey! – NO INTERNET. Since then I’ve emailed a complaint to two different people at Virgin Media, but haven’t had a response.) So, the Virgin Media engineer who was booked to come out to us today to fix our internet? Isn’t coming. Because Virgin cancelled the appointment. Thirty minutes before it was due to happen, because obviously our time isn’t important AT ALL, is it? Hell no, we can change our plans for you, Virgin Media, but don’t worry about letting us down at the last minute or anything, we’re only customers, after all! And the reason they’re not sending the engineer? They’ve decided there is a “network issue in our area”. Well, it’s great you could finally join us in the “People Who Knew There Was a Network Issue in the Area” club, Virgin Media, because we told you that on Friday. It was obviously a network issue. The fact that it’s taken them FIVE FULL DAYS to work that out – five full days during which we’ve only occasionally been able to access the internet – is just unacceptable to me. If it takes them five days to work out there’s an issue affecting a whole area, then it doesn’t really inspire much confidence in them, does it? So. Five days without the internet. Two missed appointments. Huge disruption to our lives and business. And the next time the weather’s hot, it’ll probably happen again (one of the many, many people we’ve spoken to over the past few days confirmed that there’s an issue connected to “hot” weather.). Obviously we realise that sometimes things go wrong: as Terry says, it’s how the company deals with those things that matters, and, once again, Virgin Media are doing a fantastic job of convincing me they really don’t give a crap about their customers. I think it’s time to start investigating new ISPs… NO. INTERNET. (From Virgin Media. Again.)I’ve had barely any internet access since Friday afternoon. I KNOW! How have I coped? Well, “badly” would probably be the most accurate answer to that. Especially given that, even as I write this, I know there’s a really good chance my internet connection will go down again soon. How do I know this? Because we’re having what counts as a “heatwave” for the UK. And every time – every SINGLE time – this happens, our broadband dies. It seriously never fails. Unlike, say, our internet connection, which has failed multiple times since Friday, meaning that I’ve now missed two days of work, and also that dress on eBay that I really wanted to bid on but missed because – hey! – NO INTERNET. (Oh, and the internet on my iPhone? Also not working. And I think there’s probably a really simple reason for that, but I don’t know what it is, because, guess what? NO INTERNET.) Virgin Media have booked us an engineer for tomorrow . This is to replace the one they had booked for today, but which they cancelled when we told them we thought the internet was working again. (It was at the time, but like I say, it’s intermittent. Sometimes it comes back just to taunt us, before dropping out again. Fun times, people, fun times.) When we called them back an hour later to say that, whoops, NO INTERNET, they were all, “Well, that’s OK, on account of how we didn’t ACTUALLY cancel the engineer call out anyway, we just SAID we did. But we didn’t. So he will come out on Monday and fix your internet!” And we were all, “Are you sure? No, are you absolutely sure, because we don’t think you are?” And they were all, “Phshaw, seriously, the engineer will be with you on Monday, we super-guarantee it with cherries on top!” So, yeah, the engineer didn’t show up. Because they had cancelled him. So then Terry got to speak to Virgin on the phone for an hour and a half. He got to speak to just about everyone who works there, with the exception of anyone who could actually help him. The upshot? NO INTERNET. For FOUR DAYS now. So. Obviously this experience has been a little bit like losing a limb. (It’s also been a LOT like losing money, on account of how I run an internet-based business, and for the last four days? NO INTERNET.) I’m now so far behind with work that it’s going to take a small miracle for me to catch up tonight, and I also feel a bit like I’m blogging against the clock, frantically trying to get stuff written before this brief window of internet access slams shut once more. Anyway, we’re hoping this will all be fixed again tomorrow, but if you never hear from me again, you’ll know why.  |
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