Preparing For The Party

I am grateful to two blogging friends, Ginene and Cynthia for engaging in a discussion about yesterday’s post. The likely culprits are mice and voles making use of mole tunnels. We have all three examples of wildlife in our garden. Comparing the tiny drilled entrance hole with the gravel stones surrounding it would implicate these small creatures.
My lower back is complaining about yesterday’s efforts. Frustrated by yet more internet access problems, and in an effort to get myself standing up straight, I took a short walk to Shorefield and back. I met a couple considering taking over The Royal Oak pub and had quite a long talk with them, but I was rather less than upright.
After lunch I girded my loins and took on BT again. I have discovered that if you want to talk to a person more or less immediately it is best to call the sales team. Logical isn’t it?
A lengthy discussion with a very helpful young man eventually revealed that Broadband Infinity does not reach our property. I had told this to the salesperson who sold us the package. She had checked with her manager who confirmed it was in our area. None of the engineers who have visited the house has mentioned this. Ashley, the salesman, advised me to change back to the BTHub3. I did this. It didn’t work. I changed back to the Hub5 which works only intermittently. Half a loaf is, I suppose, better than none.
I rang the sales department again. After a total of three hours I finally spoke yet again to the faults team level two. Apparently if you revert to Hub3 you need some kind of an adaptor fitted if you are on infinity. An engineer will visit in three days time. I did of course keep my usual cool……..
Infinity or what? Perhaps this term relates to how long you have to persist before you obtain uninterrupted service. It’s probably quite a long way ahead.
Now maybe I will have enough access time to make the post I promised yesterday.
In the 1980s, until we moved to Newark in 1987, I had begun to print my own black and white photographs. After we moved I imagined that, upon retirement, I would convert the gardening outhouse to a darkroom and continue this process in earnest. Then came computers and I do it differently now.
Jackie’s needlework has been featured before. It is also evident in this set of pictures taken on Ilford film in 1982.
I forget who hosted the party in which we were invited that summer to attend in Edwardian dress. I think it was a student on the Croydon Social Work course. In those days I was living with Jessica, Sam and Louisa in Gracedale Road, Streatham. Matthew and Becky spent the weekends with us. The rest of us dug out appropriate gear from our wardrobes, whereas Mat and Beck sported splendid costumes produced by their mother for the occasion.
The selection of images presents the family breakfasting in the garden, then dressing for the event. The pipe bearing the head of the ‘widow of Windsor’, as Queen Victoria was termed, and the stoneware bottle, were spoils from the buried midden in Kingston that we looted in our mudlarking days. I had a new stem fitted to the pipe. Jackie tells me that Becky’s hat was fashioned from an artificial bridal bouquet purchased from an Oxfam shop. Becky tells me that when she went home and told her Mum that they were going to a fancy dress party Jackie was excited at the prospect but rather daunted by the requirement of Elizabethan dress. When, the following week, our daughter returned with the information that it was Edwardian, not Elizabethan, Jackie was somewhat relieved.
Jackie has a penchant for tall wrought iron candle holders to be converted to garden planters. She had spotted a couple yesterday in Molly’s Den. We bought them after I’d finished with BT.
This evening we will be eating a Chinese takeaway meal. I won’t push my luck by waiting until afterwards to post this, but will do so whilst we are still on line for however long it lasts.