Weeding today. Lots and lots of weeding.
Winges first I guess;
The water pump is still not back. Ady and I spent the entire morning on tenterhooks waiting for Alan’s phone to ring to say ‘it’s here, come and get it’ but it didn’t. After lunch (which we didn’t eat until nearly 3pm) Alan finally rang them and was told ‘nothing today, maybe tomorrow’. I am very, very much hoping for tomorrow as my tether is so far past the end it is but a dim and distant memory. I’m not sure which is the toughest bit of the situation really – the frustration at it not having been dealt with sooner, the powerlessness of not being the one with the phone contact with anyone or the simply not knowing – as I said to Ady earlier I could cope with another ten days if I only knew that it would be another ten days.
Three and the Mifi. In lieu of payment for several hours work on the van, bits from a wrecked car Alan has with a fan he is rigging up to work on Willow and so on we offered to buy them a Mifi as they have a serious internet connection issue here and the Mifi works well and suits their needs. I ordered it, paid for it and when the website had in big letters ‘ensure you use the address the card is registered to for contact address’ I put in our house fully expecting a delivery address option to pop up on the next screen. Except it didn’t – instead I got the ‘thank you for your order, it will be despatched soon’ message instead. I checked my emails for the confirmation, got a phone number and order reference and ran up the hill to ring them. I spent about half an hour on a premium rate number listening to various ‘for x press 1’ options (Marcus, I hated you at that point!) before I finally got through to a person who said he couldn’t change the delivery address and also couldn’t cancel the order as it was already in progress. I said it had been only ten minutes so it couldn’t possibly have left yet and he corrected me that actually it had been 22 minutes so I asked for a supervisor. That supervisor couldn’t help me so I asked for another one (all on the premium rate number) and finally got someone who listened very patiently but was also unable to help me despite me pointing out the item was still actually sat on a shelf in their warehouse and had not left the building yet. Heads, brick walls and complete lack of customer service from the customer service department were all very much in evidence. I eventually conceded defeat, hung up and sat on the hillside and sobbed for about 20 minutes 🙁
Scarlett would appear to have The Cold. I thought we’d all had it as she had a quiet day way back in our first week and has been sniffly ever since but she was croupy in the early hours of this morning and how has a barking cough which she sat on my lap interspersing with sobs and pleas to ‘make it stop Mummy’ at 11pm when I was trying to drown my sorrows with a glass of luke warm white wine and a stomach so growly with hunger I was eating bombay mix and not even picking out the lentils. See how low I have stooped? Lentils and a needy, coughing child. It doesn’t get much bleaker really 😉
Weeding. I may have previously mentioned my lack of passion for weeding. I know it needs doing, I understand the reasoning behind it; I just don’t want to spend all day every day doing it really.
But along comes Nic with her Nic-ness and Nics up the whole day with a healthy dose of Nicisms.
I am married to Ady. Who is bloody great at listening to me, pretending to be me for a brief time and being all positive and optimistic (he did need to go and lie down afterwards, it took a lot out of him ;)) giving me a big cuddle, reassuring me it will all be alright and offering up solutions. Finding me a bottle of wine and furnishing me with bombay mix to snaffle.
My Mum does a fine line of swinging into action when she is really needed. For all my loathing needy children she seems to thrive on them (shame she got me really ;)) so when I confessed to sobbing on a hillside she took over the whole mifi thing and is going round to the tenants tomorrow to make sure that if it turns up there they hold it for her until after the weekend.
Getting the mifi proved a real winner with Alan – I reckon £70 is a bloody bargain for the hours of work and running around he’s putting into Willow but he is very grateful and has swung into action tonight fitting the new fan and will hopefully be on the case tomorrow with ringing to chase the water pump. He has offered either use of their car or to run us to teh booked campsite tomorrow if the waterpump is not here and sorted. So not what I want as the solution but at least we have an out for the weekend even if the waterpump doesn’t turn up I guess.
I think that’s all.
I don’t do crying often and self pity even less but wheb I had my brief foray into it today various lovely, lovely people helped me come out of the other side very quickly indeed.
three cheers for positive nic and ady the rebooter of the positive nic 🙂 and also hoping that it really is sorted tomorrow x x
Comment by HelenHaricot — 14 June 2011 @ 11:38 pm
Hope today is much much better, and has added water pump. My mum is the same – worries, frets and drives me mad the 99% of the time I have life sorted. When it all falls to bits she ups her game, stops going on about nonsense and gets my dad mobilised to rescue me in an instant. 😉 xx
Comment by Joyce — 15 June 2011 @ 7:05 am
Ha! I finally have a blogroll that knows who you are so I won’t forget.
Oh Nic – you crying. You must be feeling a bit broken. Giving you a gentle bum shove to get you going again and sending lots of love.
Comment by Merry — 16 June 2011 @ 11:44 am
At last I have caught up! Despite the tough times it sounds like overall you’re having a wonderful adventure and I am in awe of how you are as a family and doing this together. Will try and keep up from now on!
Comment by Jo — 17 June 2011 @ 5:47 pm
Not M’s fault, 3 could have decided not to make money out of customers rather than rake more income from them!
Laughing at the Bombay mix non lentil picking. Xx
Comment by Michelle — 17 June 2011 @ 6:47 pm