Good news: the weather is glorious, and the garden is responding well to the warmth. Several helianthemums (last year’s seedlings) are in flower, a couple of whites and a number of different pinks. Watching out now for some yellows and oranges, but we’ll get what we get. One lupin (a plant bought a couple of years ago is flowering vigorously, and some of last year’s seedlings are also putting up spikes. We have a row of foxgloves against the fence where I guess I must have scattered some seed a couple of years ago. Our experiment with thunbergia alata (black-eyed Susan) is interesting: I saved seed from our plants last year, and sowed them the same day as a fresh packet of seed from Sutton’s. Ours are quicker to germinate and more vigorous in identical growing medium and conditions.
What other good news? Well mixed, when it comes to cars and television. Egg1 passed its MoT yesterday, but not without expense on a couple of new tyres and a new gaiter on a drive shaft joint. We now have our new Sky box, so can once again sit and gawp at the moronic diet dished out by the TV companies. News on the washing machine front and my back is less great. The washing machine will happily stick on the wash part of the programme all day until kicked, and my back feels like it has been kicked by a donkey. Keeping moving helps, so I shall presently go and pull the washing machine out and give it a squirt of WD40. Would that the same were possible with the back.
Most troublesome, though, is the absence of internet service. After three years of slow and intermittent service, two technician visits and countless conversations with nice, if scripted, people in Mumbai, the hub telephone stopped working a few days ago, and the whole bloody issue ground to a halt yesterday morning. After the usual screen-dictated conversation with Mumbai, and a call thence a little later to say that the fault had been cleared (only to be robustly assured by yr. obed. servt. that it jolly well hadn’t!) they finally agreed to send a techy. He arrived this morning, and after much testing, a trip to the exchange and pulling up three manhole covers, identified a faulty stretch of cabling in the street. At this point he left, saying that he’d gone well beyond the time allotted for the job, and had on pain of managerial chastisement to move on to the next one, leaving us high and dry, Mumbai saying they couldn’t make another appointment until some time next week. At which point, cranium having renewed its acquaintance with rafters, I was told to expect a call by 2:00pm telling me whether they can reschedule someone to fix us up sooner. So, another few hours trapped by the telephone. This is all hideously reminiscent of the dialogue des sourds with Frogtel at Easter time: and of course the issue is still not sorted there either.
If you get to read this today, it’ll be thanks to the good offices of KCC libraries, though I’m not sure whether they’ll let me upload from a flash drive.
Post scriptum from Rusthall Library: yes, I can upload. Phone call before I left for the village: BT techy No. 'n' arrives tomorrow at 8:00, will stay till the work is done and service is restored, and I'll get a call later soliciting feedback. It sometimes pays to stamp one's size 9 a bit.
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