A Little Local Problem

 So if the computer starts working to rule again today- and grinding along so slowly we can't send mail or access our favourite sites- we'll know it's not something wrong with our modem but a problem affecting the whole area- and we just need to be sweetly patient while they get round to replacing the cable- or whatever.

It was really, really annoying yesterday morning. Actually I was more than annoyed, I was frantic. I had an important email to send- not quite life and death but not far off- and it just sat in the outbox while the little icon that shows that mail is being sent spun round and round and round- quite uselessly. We contacted Virgin and they said they'd send an engineer today. At lunchtime the system hiccoughed back into life and my email got sent. What a relief! And then, through the afternoon, it was on-off-on-off until tea-time- after which everything was fine.
 
The engineer rang this morning. He's had a lot of calls from customers in our neighbourhood- and he's come to the conclusion that there's simply too much local traffic and- as in the pioneering days of dial-up- the network is suffering overload. Sorry and all that, but he's reported the problem up the line and it'll get sorted eventually.

There's one good thing about being forced off the Net- I do lots and lots of housework. Yesterday I even washed the car.