Oh, what a flaming nightmare I have had for the last week. It started with a couple of emails refusing to send on OUTLOOK and snowballed into no ftp, an unstable and dead slow internet connection and culminated in no internet whatsoever and me having kittens about my inability to get my work done on the internet.

I’ve been back and forth with a lovely lady in the US where my sites are hosted. I’m sure if she was within striking distance she would have given me a cuddle and a cup of tea she was so sympathetic (thank you Sheila of FQ) but unfortunately there was nothing she could do.

John of Sorted Sites lent me a sympathetic ear too and recommended I call ‘his computer guy’, Col, who talked me into getting a grip and pointed me in the direction of how to properly do a full system scan (get off the internet for a start).

After scanning and scouring the pc with assorted anti-virus and bug killers all weekend I was sure that the computer was clean and would now run like a well oiled racehorse (or something like that) but to my great frustration the damn thing still sat there like a fat slug, refusing to do more than creep on to one page of the internet before keeling over in exhaustion once again.

Telefonica were useless. I knew it was their router that was at fault. I tried to tell them that. First call resulted in me being sent packing to the English department. The lady there must have a hot link to the technical depatment though because she bounced me back to the techies quicker than I could say ‘Then what’s the bloody use having an English Department?’

To cut a long (long, long, long) story short about three days and a million calls to Telefonica later we were still no further forward. George at The Tenerife Property Guide had had an earful of my plight when he called me mid-week and kindly offered me the use of an extra router he had lying about.

I cantered down to get it yesterday full of hope and pondered for a moment or two over the odd bits and bobs that are to be found in George’s store room. I knew better than to try and plug and play the router myself because by now I was beginning to suspect that aliens were emitting a magnetic frequency through me that were frying any computer equipment that I came within five feet off. That turned out to be a clever move because then I couldn’t get the blame when His Nibs tried to install it and it didn’t work. (heh!)

But before the abortive attempt to get the replacement router installed there was an added little twist to the day. Our car had just been brought out of the garage that morning having had repairs to the driver side door. It had gone through the car wash and was sitting there in the car park looking all shiny when three little yobos came along and stoved in the passenger side window! My neighbour saw them do it. Thankfully she did not intervene as I would rather have a stoved in window than a duffed up neighbout but can you imagine!

Anyway, George’s router did not work last night and by this morning there was no choice but to call in the cavalry. Cue Ackie who arrived at 9.00 am to find me clucking over the computer like a worried old hen and left at 10 having changed the router and got my pc singing like a lark again. Thank you Ackie and Hello World!