Saturday October 18, 2008
“I think I know what’s wrong with this broadband thing,” Graham said yesterday, holding a tangle of wires and the silent broadband router aloft in his hand.
“What’s that, then?” It was a little before nine in the evening and my thoughts were turning to dinner.
“The cable from the new BT socket to my study is so old the broadband signal is being degraded. I’ll plug it in here, direct to the ADSL outlet.”
“Oh. Sounds logical.”
Moments later the broadband indicator on the router was glowing steadily and the one for wireless connection was blinking furiously as my laptop identified itself and connected to the Internet. We are online.
“Oh, well done, chooky boots. It’s all downhill from now, then?”
“Yup. What’s for dinner?”
“Coq au vin,” I said, peering at the label on the chilled-food tray. And then, inspecting two additional trays, “With potato au gratin and a medley of green vegetables.”
“Sounds good.”
It was, too.
I had written two updating entries so I uploaded those, sent off a notify, and let the counter tick.
Today we got Dolly her food at the majorly massive Tesco’s in Llansamlet, another fix of chilled food for today and tomorrow, and then a Freesat box giving us access to hundreds of TV channels, 130 standard British and European, and goodness knows how many accidentals. The sun came out. The woman who scanned us through the checkout was the niece of one of our new neighbours. There’s a charming village-style Macdonald’s on the way home.
Home, pasties and baked beans for lunch, and a complete zonk-out siesta. My poor old body began to protest loud and long when we were in the hypermarket and had reached very close to its limits by the time we’d sat down to eat. I didn’t pop a pain-killer, but if things get any worse I shall have to go over to three or four a day.
“You can take the evening off,” Graham said. ”I’ll do us a spaghetti bolognese. And tomorrow you must rest up as completely as you can. And Monday. And for as long as it takes. I’m happy sorting all these boxes out.”
So it’s feet up for me, enjoying the riches of satellite TV of the free variety and the full joys of unlimited broadband access. I’ll be out walking as soon as I can but for a while I need to cosset and coddle my joints and sinews.
