Broadband outage frustration

I slept more soundly, far better than I have done for a while, but was still aroused in the early hours by the newd to pee - as much as I have done for months since the stroke, due to these medications I'm taking, but I came through feeling refreshed,  clearer headed and not lethargic, thanks to acupuncture! 

I didn't push myself to do much until mid-morning when I recorded and edited this week's Reflection and Daily Office for St Hilda. It's a bit irksome with my impaired eyesight at the moment. The mouse cursor readily gets lost in the upper left of the screen and I have difficulty recognising where it is to retain mouse control. Maybe if I work my eyes with persistence the exercise will improve my vision, re-establishing disrupted connections in the brain. Talking of which, our broadband is off-line. Such a nuisance. Only yesterday TalkTalk announced a price rise. Is it time to swap service providors?

For now I have to go upstairs to get a 4G signal to continue working, then shuttle files between phone and computer with a USB drive. We've become utterly dependent on stable internet for everything we do. No good can come of this. I'm wondering if the present outage is an infrastructure issue, a hacking crisis, or a solar flare disrupting every internet connected device.

Both Kath and Owain called for a chat this morning. Rachel tends to call at night due to the time zone difference. 

I cooked cod with sweet potatoes leeks and carrots for lunch. Afterwards a siesta in bed for a change, before going for a walk in the park. While I was out I started thinking I should brief my sister about the power of attorney signing application. I sent her a message - at least I can get a 4G signal outdoors. When I got home, I got the signed documents together to send to June. I decided to send a copy of an email from the Public Guardian's Office explaining how to deal with the problem. 

It was more difficult off-line than I expected. First find the email you want to print, on your phone, next download a copy you can transfer to a USB stick, not as straightforward as you expect. The phone user interface is too fiddly and complex to make this easy. I have a super little USB drive with a B interface at one end, C at the other, to enhance transfer from phone to computer. It worked fine, though I had trouble finding the file as there's so much stuff on his handy little utility. Once I did, I printed the email copy to include with other documents to mail to my sister, then headed out in the dark to the Post Office. It was empty, a few minutes before closure. What luck, considering time wasted getting the email printed. 

I went to the Coop for fresh chicken thighs to roast. Success despite the frustrations, grateful that getting the job done didn't exhaust me. I spent the evening relaxing, watching an old black and white movie of 1953 on BBC Four called 'Desert Rats' about the siege of Tobruk in the North African campaign of World War Two. So many soldiers with Received Pronunciation accents, stilted dialogue and an all male cast. I remember seeing it on telly when I was a boy, over 65 years ago. A classic low key celebration of courage and stubborn endurance in a post-war war movie. 

Sea defences and the EU

I sent Kath and Anto a text message to congratulate them on their 24th wedding anniversary. This happened around the time when the job in Geneva first presented itself to me, and when Clare's mother died. It seems like only yesterday, and so much more has happened to the whole family in the years since then.

I'm rising early, trying to deal with routine emails and uploading photos to the internet, but progress is hindered by slow low capacity broadband. This takes the edge off using a Chromebook, usually so smooth and slick at doing everything. Here I seem to do a lot of waiting, get time outs and app crashes. There's been no real improvement since I was here in 2012. The big difference now is the dominance of Cloud storage and web apps, and this sort of internet service isn't fit to meet the demands of today's users. Web user interfaces are are attractive, except when screen refresh slows to a crawl because of the connection. These days, having several connected devices in UK is normal. Here they tick over, but work effectively only one at a time.

I started wondering how people cope, as hypermarkets here have phones, tables and PCs to sell. They get bought and used, but what's happened here is ruled by the widespread rapid uptake of 3G and 4G phone services. Many people no longer bother with having a landline, and the quality of mobile internet is good. My Blackberry behaves here much as it does at home, away from home wi-fi. Here, when connected to wi-fi preferentially, it's not as good. I suspect that in some regions, the old landline telephone and broadband service infrastructure is not being modernised. It may not even be profitable to do so if, mobile infrastructure is new and better.

This morning, I drove to Lidl's to do some grocery shopping and stock up for the week, did some washing, then went out a walk along the coast path of the urbanizacion Saldonar, where the church house is situated. Eighteen months ago, I was aware coastal erosion that was taking place and took photos of some of the damage. It seems to have got even worse just after I left, as sections of the path battered by stormy seas, collapsed. Since then, work has been done on new coastal defences and walkways, funded by the EU, half a million Euros worth of work on the hardest hit places over a kilometre of local shore-line. It's good to see this kind of economic solidarity in action. Britain needs it too, and will suffer as a result of brexit.

After supper, I went for another walk up the barranco forming the boundary with the neighbouring urbanizacion Boverals on the town side. Beyond the houses is a wooded part of the ravine, from which some interesting sounds of birdsong were rising as the sun began to set, but nothing I could identify, which is most intriguing.