Disaster Struck Twice This Week

It started on Wednesday.

I had already had my shower and my wife went to have hers. She came down some minutes later informing me the shower was no longer working.

We checked the shower in our other bathroom. It was not working.

My stepson (who is very clever) took over. All relevant fuses were checked. All in order. Things were looking grim.

He then turned on a tap, low water pressure. Things were looking grimmer. However, my wife is on a local Facebook type thing (I don’t know how these things work) and messages were coming through that several roads in our neighbourhood were without water, and the water company had been alerted.

The lady who had called the company was initially told to call a plumber. She had to explain it was a wider problem than just one house. They said they would look into it. This did not fill me with hope. Some weeks ago, another part of the country was without water for several days.

Things were looking even grimmer. 😆

As Wednesday is our weekly shopping day, and we accepted there was nothing we could do about the water situation, we decided to go ahead, but made a note to stock up with some bottles of water, which we did.

On returning from our trip, the first thing I did was turn on a tap. I have never been so pleased to see water coming out of a tap. We were back on.

That happened on Wednesday.

On Thursday (yesterday), things were jogging along nicely when suddenly we lost our internet connection.

After doing the usual re-booting thing without success, I called our service provider. After several minutes of pressing buttons and going through several password checks, I was put through to a human. I immediately handed the phone to my stepson, who is very clever and knows about these things. (Although, I had been told when he was very young, he was a fan of the Smurfs. 😃 I think he is over that.)

After much action around something called a router, the conclusion was the said router had given up the ghost. A replacement router was ordered, but the delivery time was between three and five working days. Given that there was a weekend looming, it could mean I would be offline for at least five days, possibly seven.

My stepson asked if the router could be sent by a shorter and quicker route. The provider’s man said he would try but could not guarantee anything. I prepared myself for a few days without an internet connection.

I was torn between trying to engage and write articles using my phone or giving up and waiting for the router thing to turn up. But the decision was taken out of my hands when my stepson informed me, he had re-started the dead router, and it was now alive again. Of course, he could not guarantee it would not die again.

Well, the router may have been switched on, but I was switched off. I decided I would not resume work until today.

It was with much trepidation I switched on my computer this morning to find it was working. Of course, I was still aware that the router could pack up again, leaving me facing a few days in online limbo. 😆

So, imagine my delight when I received a text from my provider telling me the router thingy would be with me this pm.

So, with luck, the day will end well, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

As I write, it has yet to appear, but the old router is still working, so I am able to write this article and publish it. Of course, if the old router does pack up, then I would not be writing this article, and you wouldn’t be reading it, would you, or would you? Look, I don’t know how these things work, I just work here. 😁

Thank you for reading (If you have been. 😂)