The Vicar's Egg

For those not yet aware of this particular phrase, I have a story.

Once a Vicar went to breakfast or tea (with some parishioners, I assume) and was fed a bad egg, or not precisely a bad egg, because, when asked how it had been, he replied "Very good in parts".

It's one of those 'glass half empty' lessons in life, except with a sort of yo-yo element built in, swinging the victim subject from one extreme to the other along the way. Perhaps Forrest Gump's box of chocolates would come close, if he had been obliged to work through the lot in one sitting.

I am experiencing a Vicar's egg. I hope the reverend gentleman, whoever or wherever he may be, has no objection.

The TV is working again. This is good. The problem was not to to with any of the intentionally removable wires at the back (all of which I wiggled enthusiastically at the moment of finding fault), but, rather disconcertingly with the supposedly permanent fixture known as the main power cable. This is not so good. Mercifully I wed a man with more than a passing capability in this field, having once made TVs for a living on behalf of the long defunct Fidelity. (You know the sort, the little 1970s white or bright orange 'portable' sets that weighed a ton but had a briefcase style handle built in to the top as proof that, given the right muscle strength, you could indeed 'port' them. This is a digression, but the bit before it was a good thing.)

So where are we? 2:1 to generally good stuff, so far, but the match has just begun and the players are still finding their stride.

Those of a delicate nature may wish to skip down a couple of paragraphs - then again it is highly unlikely that anyone with any particularly genteel sensibilities would be reading my blog in the first place.

This week is NNW*. This is bloody annoying. There are two things generally guaranteed to happen when Husband makes a trip away, or, if you prefer, one thing, enthusiastically reprised. These occur just before he leaves and then as soon as possible after he returns. Okay these things go on at other times too, but not often with such desire, intent and athleticism as may be afforded by a man whose back has a full, monastic week to regain movement, in the first instance, or to ready itself, in the second. This is a Bad thing - note the capital B, nonetheless we now have a draw, 2 all to sublime joys :-) vs miserable grievances :-(.

Husband had the day off work because he needs to make a five hour trip today to be available for a 9am start at the course tomorrow, so we walked the kids to school and then headed off to town for breakfast at the coffee shop. :-)

We also popped into Woolworth to buy him socks (because I never pair other peoples socks, he rarely throws away ones with holes in, Son (11) is already in to 'borrowing' dad's best pairs if he can't find any school socks [being generally as organised as his father in the matter of footcoverings] and it would therefore take a week to even evaluate whether Husband had ten decent pairs for the trip.) Enter the real reason for our 'romantic' jaunt, obviously; but the icing on the cake was when he trawled off to nose through the music CDs on sale just as we got to the front of the queue, leaving me to pay for the purchases. He only had a £20 or a fiver, so he gave me the fiver as a token. He seemed to feel this was a fair and honourable gesture on his part. :-(

We came home in a taxi :-)

He paid :-)

He went straight on the internet to check train times and his emails, and pretty much stayed there. :-(

He then started hurriedly packing, although it could have all been done the night before :-(

He then casually announced that his intended departure time (previously defined as somewhere between 1 and 3 in the afternoon) had moved forward to 12 noon, to avoid the London rush hour and to get to his destination before it was dark, i.e. he planned leaving in about ten minutes time :-(

I called him a taxi and whoosh, there he was gone, but with lots of cuddles at the door and promises to phone and a big smiley wave from the car :-)

I came back indoors and found that his computer (the server) was now, suddenly, miraculously and perversely, refusing to connect to the internet :-(

Diagnostics ran and offered to repair things, in as much as the little box said something along the lines of 'technically this can be repaired, so hit the button marked 'repair' and give it your best shot'. :-)

This didn't work and it suggested I go online for further details - fun, considering that was the one thing I couldn't do :-( (By the way, I really should ask, are you bored yet? I am. I quite understand.)

I spent an hour cleaning up his computer, defragging, searching for newly installed software (in case it really was a firewall settings thing) and even restoring to yesterday's date, rebooting after each and every step, all the while suffering withdrawal symptoms in anticipation, for fear of an entire ten days with no blog and no email. No joy. :-(

I rang the BT operator and instead of giving me the 0845 number for their broadband services (which costs money) they tried to connect me for free :-)

The guy kept mumbling things such as 'Just bear with me' with increasing levels of desperation, for about five minutes and never actually managed to redirect my call at all. :-(

However, as I sat there thinking this must be some kind of black comedy, the darn computer decided the DNS liked the IP or something, and it all sprang back to life. Halle-flaming-lujah. :-)

So here we are. At the moment the bad bits of the egg are winning by 1 point (or so), but there's more.

Two other, rather wonderful things happened yesterday, and as the TV got repaired last night, yesterday still counts.

Firstly I got a redirected piece of mail that had been posted well over a week ago. It was a birthday card, from a dear and distant friend, who had got the two digits of my house number mixed up. It was a lovely, silly Purple Ronnie card and I am apparently a 'top banana'. Suits me. :-)

Another friend who, although at home all day, is there because she genuinely works there and can't afford to witter away on MSN all day, nonetheless read yesterday's post and invited me to be on her chat list. If I get to the point where I really need an equal to hear me go GRAAAA!, I just have to click on her name and type said word. Its funny, but the power of the internet - blogging, email, chat et al, is that it doesn't really matter whether there is any response, or if that response takes weeks to arrive, somehow just putting an expletive or similar out there via any of these media, makes you feel 'heard'. I am honoured by the risk she took and flattered and feel special. :-)

Okay so I havent exactly been cruelly buffetted by the winds of WTF, more sort of gently stunned, like a chicken stroked between the eyes (or is that rabbits/horses/snakes?) Still, it all turned out good in the balance** and it could have been a lot worse.

I have a new and empathic understanding of that Vicar fellow. Lucky me.


(* No Nooky Week)
(** Unless you count that I trod in dog mess while we were out, in which case its a draw after all.)