We moved to the Suffolk countryside to downscale our very busy lives and to be a little more remote to enjoy the peace and quiet.
Ha! Whoever says it’s quiet in the countryside is a big fibber! Take last night for example. We wanted a relaxing, early night as we’d had a busy weekend and a couple of late nights.
(I’m aware I sound 100 years old).
So last night I spotted a new drama (Love a drama TV series) on the telly-box and shouted through to hubby who was in the kitchen making himself a hot chocolate (it’s currently about 25 degrees outside, but he’s making hot chocolate) that I’ve found us something to watch whilst we wind down.
Hubby isn’t as big a fan as me of a drama series, so I’m sure he was jumping for joy at this news. But anyway, we decided to start watching it from the beginning on iPlayer as it was already 20 mins in, on the telly.
As I’m conscious of time ticking, I hop over to iPlayer to find the programme whilst hubby is still faffing in the kitchen. Only then to find myself being asked to log in. I’m muttering under my breath and then hubby says it’s because we’ve had a new internet router, so will need to log back into iPlayer. I follow the instructions on screen, only to find that the naffing internet has gone off again.
The internet connection here is unreliable to say the least. And with two of us working from home and a teenage daughter who is permanently on the internet, this causes our household a huge amount of stress. We’ve had farmers cut through the cable at the height of the Covid pandemic when literally everyone was working from home and home schooling. Mr farmer wasn’t popular at that point! Trees have grown across the cable which have stopped it from working, we’ve had more new routers than I’ve had hot dinners, and then there are times when it just decides to not play ball for no apparent reason.
We are currently in one of those times. We’ve had engineers out who have said everything is fine but let’s try a new router (again) and yet it’s still failing. Apparently, they are going to send out a “multi-skilled engineer” this week to help us. Who knew there were single-skilled engineers?
So back to my relaxing early night. When the internet has re-booted, I log-in to iPlayer. Hubby has his hot chocolate, so we can settle down to watch the telly for a bit, before we head up for an early night. We get about ten minutes into the program when the internet drops off again! Deep breath and wait for it to re-boot. Off we go again and in another five minutes it drops again.
That’s it! I’ve had enough. Let’s just go to bed. Up we go and I’m sat in bed trying to relax and read my book. There are the usual noises outside that we are now used to hearing, like owls hooting to each other and deer’s barking. Google it – awful noise! And the odd low flying chinook helicopter and jets from the airbase local to us. (Sadly no Tom Cruise).
Then we hear a car pull up outside the gate. They linger, then drive off. Then reverse back up the lane to our house, and then drive off again. By this stage we’re back on our phones trying to check out the security cameras to see what’s going on. But of course, they haven’t been linked up to the new router! For the love of God!!! I HATE technology!
Hubby is out of bed and downstairs to have a look and to re-link the cameras back up (to the new router) and I’m peering out of the bedroom window like I’m a key member of the neighbourhood watch scheme.
All goes quiet, so I’m back in bed, settled down with my book, taken a couple of deep breaths and prepare to relax. Something catches my eye. There is a huge black beetle on the floor by my side of the bed. I am now resembling Victor Meldrew, shouting “Right!” whilst jumping out of bed, searching the room for something I can catch the beetle in. In my rush I knock my glass of water over into a little dish where I keep some of my jewellery. Marvellous!
So not only am I looking for something to in which to catch the beetle, I, also dash to the bathroom to get a towel to dry my jewellery which is swimming in the micro-pool I’ve managed to create.
Needless to say; this wasn’t the relaxing, early night I had planned. My entire evening was a circus. Maybe this evening I will take myself up to bed and find an App where I can listen to the relaxing hum of a busy motorway, or a rowdy football match to help me relax and drift off into a deep slumber?