The Week (and a bit) that was

I thought bad things were supposed to come in threes. It’s almost two weeks since jiggering my back while checking the rain gauge to record the day’s rainfall on the BOM site, that’s the Bureau of Meteorology to the unitiated, nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. I leaned over to take the cap off, got half way down and there I remained, hovering in agony with nothing to hang on to, figuring out whether or not to collapse in a heap on the soggy ground seeing as we’d had 75ml of rain the day before, and quite a bit in the last 24 hours.

Fortunately for me someone drove past at that precise moment, jumped out of their car, and got me into an upright position whereupon I expressed my deep thanks as well as some other expressions of annoyance at once again putting myself in the position where I knew I’d have limited movement for quite a while.

That was Friday Jan 29 - Day 1 - Incident 1

Saturday - Day 2 - Incident 2

Knew I’d have to ring the bus company to reschedule the ticket I’d already bought for the following Monday to go to Hobart for my Jack Jumper ant allergy jab. I knew it would be at least a week before I could get in the car and drive, let alone be shaken and rattled all the way to Hobart and back in a bus. One problem, no phone, no dial tone, no nothing.

Figured I could make the call from the office so off I went, walking gingerly after the hour it had taken me to shower and get dressed. No phone, no dial tone, no nothing. Started checking around the village. Same answer, no landline phones, no eftpos machines working, so the obligatory call on the mobile to Telstra to inform them I reckoned the huge amount of rain was most likely the reason and that the cable servicing the village was probably sitting in a puddle of water at the substation 5km down the road. Several calls on the mobile later we expected all would be well in an appropriately timely manner.

Sunday – Day 3 – Incident 3

Still no phones.

I do like a piece of dark chocolate coated licorice, or several really, seeing as once you’ve had one you can’t stop there. With more licorice than chocolate, that’s my way of justifying not stopping at one, for my theory says it takes about three licorice pieces to equal one little square of chocolate. Only problem was one of them was rather crunchy. Rather strange I thought. Pulled out the gooey mess to find half a molar in the middle of it all. Great. I’m already running out of chewing teeth, don’t need to lose any more. No pain though, so there was one plus in there to be thankful for.

Monday – Day 4 – Incident 4

Still no phones, plus my office computer is moving at snail speed when I work from the remote desktop. Normal internet seems ok as we have NBN, but I feel like I’m back in the dark ages of dial up, go make a cup of tea, log on to a site, go cook dinner, ask the computer to do a simple task, go eat dinner, come back to see if anything’s happened, go do the dishes etc etc. When I come to think of it, this incident pre-dates Incident 1. Not sure what issue is related to what.

Tuesday – Day 5

Still no phones. For some strange reason I think Telstra are getting a little miffed with our daily calls checking on the progress

Wednesday – Day 6 – Incidents 5 & 6

Still no phones. Not exactly helpful for the enterprises who rely on them for their daily business transactions.

My right hand computer speaker at home started humming rather loudly. Droning would be a more fitting description really. Went to ITunes to play some music while I did other things and it was obvious all was not well. The music sounded tinny and was much louder than those singing, who sounded like they were several miles away in a different building from the musos. I guess there’ll be no music in the study until that’s sorted.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, connected to the internet and instantly everything started flashing and blinking, and intermittent patches of patterns flicked on and off. Hmm, definitely something wrong here, something to do with the speakers? Unplugged them, didn’t make any difference. Not game to log on to anything. Oh well, that’ll save a bit of mindless Facebook trawling.

Thursday – Day 7

Still no phones

Friday – Day 8

Yaaaaay….PHONES!! Apparently I was right, water affected cable junction, pretty major job for the Telstra guys. Phoned the Govt dentist to arrange an appointment. Trust me to be truthful and say it’s not painful. Not important enough, I’m on the waiting list.

Saturday – Day 9 – Incident 7

Spent a few hours working in the Op Shop, brought home a load of washing to do. Chucked the powder in the machine, put the lid down, pushed the knob in, turned it to the wash cycle (don’t have one of those super duper push button flashing lights models), pulled the button out, heard a splash of water then nothing, just a hum. What now? It worked this morning, I’d already done a load of my own washing. Pushed the knob in again, moved it further round the cycle, pulled it out and it spun just fine. Tried it again on the wash cycle…hummmm. I have to admit it’s twenty years old so I guess something had to go wrong eventually.

Went to the kitchen to put the kettle on...no water…ok, so has the town’s water supply been turned off for some maintenance issue? At least that would explain why the washing machine suddenly stopped working.

Then I looked up, out the kitchen window, to the lake forming at the bottom of the yard and water bubbling up at a furious rate where the water meter lives. Oh well, the explanation was pretty obvious now. Went into Damsel in Distress mode, had to muster up two guys with several tools before the water could even be turned off as the tap was so tight. After much baling out of water, discovered the water meter had completely blown its top.

I didn’t fancy the prospect of calling a plumber out on a Saturday just so I could pay an arm and a leg and several other body parts to get it fixed, neither did I like the idea of visiting the neighbours every time I wanted to go to the toilet until I could get one to come on Monday. Credit to my two knights in shining armour, they found a brass cap, fitted it there and then and all was unky dory again. Who needs a plumber! Wasn’t exactly what we thought we’d be doing with our Saturday afternoon, but I love the fact my neighbours came to the rescue without the slightest hesitation. The washing was done, the flood receded, disaster averted.

I’m happy to say the last few days have been incident free, and my office computer is performing properly again. Did the Telstra fix work some miracle? Being an IT technophobe and mostly computer illiterate I have no idea, but I’ll take whatever good news is offered.

One major achievement made this morning on Day 13 was the fact I could get my proper walking shoes on for the first time since Incident Number 1 and actually do up the laces, albeit very carefully. Great to have a decent walk, and I’m now up to slightly more strenuous exercises to strengthen myself in readiness for next Monday’s bouncy bus ride to Hobart and back. Plus the fact I've been able to sit long enough to write this little missive is cause for celebration.

The home computer’s still an issue, and my tongue keeps finding the sharp edge of my broken tooth, but you can’t have everything. There are plenty struggling with far more important issues, and there’s more than one way to skin a cat, so I check my emails and other necessary internet stuff at work, and settle into chill mode while learning the art of patience as those things yet unresolved join the queue of priorities.