When the Outside World is not in your home.

We've only just been hooked back up to the world at large. We had no internet and no telephone for four days. On Tuesday as I pulled the car in the driveway on my way home from work the neighbours mower man came running up to tell me that my cables had been ripped away from the mains and it looked like a truck may have been responsible. I went to talk to my elderly neighbour about it as all the cable had been neatly rolled and dumped in her front yard, right in amongst her prize winning gerberas. She told me that while she was ironing in front of Days of Our Lives earlier that day she'd seen a truck come past and then stop and some men got out and rolled up the cable and dumped it in her yard and drove off again. We all tsked tsked and shook our head at the rudeness of people today. How they hadn't bothered to leave a note or to even see if anyone was home and admit to what they'd done.

As all this was going on my sister called me on my mobile. I told her to call the phone company for me as I wasn't about to pay he exhoribant prices they would charge on my mobile while they put me on hold for several hours to sort it out. They called me back soon after and I explained in great detail what had happened. I told them that the lines had been completely severed from the main line and that the part still connected to the house was many metres above the ground. She told me someone would be around the following day.

The following morning I went to tell my elderly neighbour that they would be here later in the day to fix it and not to touch the lines in the meantime. I asked her if she thought the truck may have come from the house that was being built two doors down. Her reply - "Oh I don't know. I didn't see anything or any truck". Go figure that one out! Someone did come that day, while I was at work, and they called me on my mobile to tell me that they would have to come back with a cherry picker the next day because THE LINES WERE COMPLETELY SEVERED AND SEVERAL METRES OFF THE GROUND AT THE HOUSE LEVEL. I uttered a very obvious "Der" down the telephone line. I had to stop myself from telling him that I was no technician but I had easily figured out that a cherry picker would be needed because, as I told them on the phone, the LINES WERE COMPLETELY SEVERED AND SEVERAL METRES OFF THE GROUND.

Never the less we still had no phone or internet connection and would have to wait another day. When I arrived home from work the following day there were still no connected lines, no internet and no telephone. I called them from my mother's house. Asked why there was no connection. I was told that they were not due until the fifteenth. I told him it was the fifteenth and he very embarrassingly backtracked, attempted to call through to someone to ask what the problem was and why the hadn't been there. He couldn't get a hold of anyone and so rebooked the repair for the following morning - Friday.

Friday morning came and went and no signs of any technicians. They finally showed at around 3pm and had it fixed in an hour and amazingly had no cherry picker. One guy with one very big ladder. Done. Easy. Back to normal.

Maya was more pleased than anyone when the internet was back in service. She had acted as though someone had been slowly sapping the blood from her veins over the four days we were without it.She had been unable to chat for hours on Messenger with friends she had spent the entire day with at school! She had been unable to check her emails and readjust her myspace. It was terrible and heartbreaking to watch her wither away and go to the computer and click the internet icon in the hope that it had somehow miraculously reconnected itself while she wasn't looking. I was getting a littel titchy because I had internet banking to do and bills to pay online but not enough to make me want to tear my hair out. I was actually quite enjoying the peace and quiet that came with a non working telephone. There were no boring telemarketers calling trying to get me to buy telephones or change my internet plan. Best of all I thought my husband wouldn't be able to talk for hours to his best friend...that is until his mobile rang. Not that I mind most of the the time, it's just that those two can talk much longer than any woman can to her best friend. I get a little jealous.

The peace and quiet ended abruptly at around 4.30pm with the first call. It was a telemarketer, wanting me to change phone plans...

So I have a lot to tell but right now I have a lot to do. More later.