After a longish pause from doing anything to this site under the throes of moving, I return after unpacking several million boxes and getting the broadband up and running. To my surprise a lot of people have been reading the site even though I have posted nothing. Hmm.

BT’s performance when we moved in was (to put it mildly) vexing. Their call centres are in India (I think) and the folk there show impressive patience and expertise at trying to help stressed people thousands of miles away sort out these technical broadband problems. But it seemed to take them far too long to identify a fault on the line, following which an engineer came almost a week later and rummaged around, eventually to good effect. 

That said, my pitiful gratitude at the fact that it is all now working is enhanced by the fact that in this remote house the broadband speed is far faster, so my latest iTunes movie (the marathon Western Heaven’s Gate) downloaded in a puny two hours – back at the other place it would have taken 12 or more(!).

Otherwise the usually reliable John Lewis have made a fool of themselves by delivering two posh new toasters when we ordered only one, then sending two separate people to collect the excess toaster.

Heroes of the move? UK Office Direct. I ordered a load of new files for our home office the other evening – swooosh, they arrived by FedEx the next morning. I find I have ordered the wrong size folders, under miscellaneous BT-related stress disorders – swooosh, the wrong ones are removed the next day and new ones appear. Wow.

Advice to all movers! Buy at least two Leatherman supertools and attach a bright red ribbon to them to find them amidst all the packing madness.