In my previous post you will have seen a mention of a fraught week which was redeemed from direness by the visit to the British Library. Today it finished off in style. BUT to start at the very beginning - a very good place to start....
Last Sunday I downloaded a photo from an email into my photos on my ipad. I have them in albums so that I do not get muddled in a huge heap of pics. All my cruise photos, trips to the country, days out etc etc going back quite a few years. Woke up the next morning and discovered they had vanished - I had over 2000 and now I had 200 which were taken from a disparate collection of years. I logged on, logged off did all the usual and nothing worked. Went onto iCloud, they were gone from there as well. Now I never wipe my memory cards from my digital camera so an awful lot of these were backed up, but all the photos taken on my phone and pad of Kathryn's visit had gone.
Next day I got onto Apple. I was on a chat line with them for over and hour and in the end they had to give up. They were as baffled as me. So I contacted a computer guru guy I knew and he said to come in with the ipad and he would see what he could do. This was a Sunday and the next day a Bank Holiday so had to be patient.
I was so fed up I decided to watch a crap movie and put my feet up on my bed, cup of tea and iPad and pulled up The Pelican Brief and old favourite of mine with Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts. Half way through it stopped and a message came up to check my wifi connection. I did and found that my tv was off, half my electric lights would not work and all was dead. The trip switch had gone and after a fruitless half hour of trying to locate what had caused it, I called My Lovely Man who deals with Everything and, bless him, he tootled over. Managed to isolate the problem - my washing machine.
Next morning I ring up Hoover to book an engineer. After fifteen minutes of listening to be told Your call is Important to us Please hold on, up comes a message saying 'if you wish to book an engineer please visit our website'. Well why the hell did they not say so in the first place? So I hang up, get on line, drill down through the website to book a local engineer and Guess What? I am given a phone number and end up back in a queue. Thoughts of mass murder went through my head at this point but I calmed myself down and waited. I ended up with such a helpful lady who listened to my tirade and thoroughly sympathised with me. Engineer duly booked. By the time I got off the phone and checked it had taken me 40 minutes to deal with so I fired off an email to the complaints department. Have I received a reply? Of course not.
Now while all this was all going on, I had toothache. It had been developing slowly and gradually getting worse so I took painkillers and carried on as I was not going to cancel the visit to the British Library. And, as you have read, it was wonderful and took my mind off my painful jaw.
I went to see the computer guru and his office was in a tiny little local business unit and had computers stacked up to the ceiling, and wires everywhere and was a total shambles BUT he found the photographs. They had migrated to a very old Google account I have had for years and had forgotten about. There were photos of Helen's wedding there which is now 12 years ago and he was as baffled as I as to how they got there. He told me he had had people crying in his office because they had lost wedding photos, pictures of new born babies, old pictures of parents who had died. He said it is really upsetting and said that nobody should depend just on iCloud or one back up. In his opinion everyone should have three. I have my memory cards and iCloud but am also going to get the Google back up app as well.
You know what? He charged me £20. Yes £20. He would not take any more. And, no I am not giving you his phone number.....
Next day I went to the dentist on an emergency appointment. Dentist said Open Wide and prodded my aching tooth with what felt like a pick axe. Dear Readers, I nearly went through the roof. The tooth has to come out, no surprise there, but I had an infection so had to have antibiotics. The last time I took a mixture of antibiotics to help with a torn ligament in my leg, I had an awful reaction and was ill and sick and took three months to get out of my system. These pills I were given have side effects. Oh yes they do. So after feeling nauseous and spending a lot of time in the bathroom (I will not go into details) I then found my tongue was swollen and I had a sore throat. I decided to read the literature that came with the pills and it seems that the last two were signs that I should Stop taking the Meds and Call my Doctor.
The meds is now in the bin and I am feeling better.
What happened next? Ah yes. The engineer called to fix my washing machine. It is the motor he said and put in a new one. But the machine is only 18 months old, my last one lasted 18 years. Seems Hoover have had a lot of trouble with these motors and have now changed manufacturers. I bet they are still selling the machines with the lousy motors in though. Nice man, all done and dusted in half an hour.
It is now Sunday again. Gosh thank the Lord nothing else can happen.
I am sitting drinking coffee and reading when I hear a drip. Drip drip drip. I got up to investigate and found that water was coming through the ceiling in the cupboard that holds my water tank etc. Earlier this year I had a leak from that so thought it was happening again. But no, it was coming through the ceiling. Paralysis set in. I just looked at the pool of water gathering on the floor and then I sat down and cried. Yes I did. I just felt I had had enough. I banged on my neighbour's door and they came in and Alison and Gary gave me a hug as I just burst into tears and said I could not cope. She then hared upstairs to speak to the new tenants who had just moved in yesterday and who were totally baffled as to what was going on. They came down to have a look and then turned their water off and called their rental company who had a plumber round in an hour. He came down to see me and said it was the waste pipe of their shower and they were told not to use it and it would be mended tomorrow.
All this time my neighbours were sitting with me. Another neighbour who is also called Alison happened to come back and wondered what was going on and she came in and we all ended up drinking tea while I sat there in a useless heap. Moomin, one of their cats came in, and leaped onto my lap, butted my head and started purring and let me cuddle her for ages. I swear she knew I was upset.
So all over and sorted and I should be grateful that this happened today and not tomorrow when I am driving up to London. I could have come back to a nightmare scenario.
An hour later and Alison No 2 knocked on the door and presented me with a gorgeous bunch of flowers because she said I needed them. I burst into tears - again.
An hour later a card was dropped through my letter box from Alison No 1 and her husband Gary telling me I was never alone and we looked out for each other and that was what neighbours are for. I burst into tears - AGAIN.
It has been a total concatenation (love that word) of events. One thing after another. If they had happened over a few weeks I could have coped with it but this morning was the final straw and I just folded. Without my lovely neighbours I would have been lost and, once again, I remind myself how lucky I am in my life.
Tomorrow I am off to London to see my girls and boy do I need it after all this.
Thank you all for bearing with me. Having all my lovely Random Readers is wonderful too.
