Telecommunication failure

The phone died today. Not for very long, it’s true. Actually it could have been dead since Monday night. All I know is that I picked it up to ring mum and dad and it was dead. No dial tone, nothing. It was like an open connection to a tomb.

I thought maybe it was some cold caller trick; they’d become so annoyed with my constant tricksy responses to their requests to talk to someone with my father-in-law’s surname, that they’d worked out how to leave the line open so I couldn’t talk to anyone. The truth was a little more prosaic.

The footpaths along Hale Road (the busy road that runs across the entrance to our street), have had some sort of repair work completed on the lamp posts that run along its length. This has required big holes to be excavated and then, following essential work, refilled with tar.

I noticed as I walked to the doctor’s (to deposit a repeat prescription request for Mirinda) that it would prove particularly difficult for anyone with a wheelchair. I say this because there’s a woman who seems to be, Borg-like, melded with her wheelchair, who regularly zips up and down this footpath. She’d not be zipping at the moment.

I asked one of the guys filling a completed hole whether anything done down it could explain my lack of a telephone line. He answered that it could very well be so, although he was just the tar man and not one of the electricians, so I was not to take his word for it. I assured him I would not and concluded it was so.

The phone line returned at some stage in the afternoon.

The morning was spent almost entirely in walking Mirinda to the station, going to Starbucks, doing some shopping then walking home under the staggering weight of my prospective lunch and dinner. That was about it for the rest of the day, too.

Actually, that is not entirely true. I am currently engaged in a small project; something Mirinda recommended for me to escape the rut I feel I’m in at the moment. For the time being, this project must remain a mystery but, eventually, hopefully, all will be revealed.