Just when I thought all of the moving stuff was sorted out, and at least the phone lines were working properly…

On Tuesday morning, my second (Internet) line kept dropping out. Three times in just a few hours; most unusual. Were aliens trying to cut me off from the outside world?

Midday. I picked up the handset plugged into the line to see if any extra-terrestrials were using the line to phone home, and momentarily encountered what seemed to be a human voice on the line. Then nothing. So I looked out the window: sure enough, four Telstra guys with four Telstra vans, working across the street. I went over and asked them if they were affecting my line. They said probably. Great.

2pm - Gave up and started using the primary (voice) line

4pm - Switched back, only to find no dial tone! Look out of window; the Telstra guys were gone. Marvellous.

4:10pm - Looked on bill to find number to ring. It wasn’t there. In fact it said "Fault reporting: Please call our 24 hour helpline", with a gap where it looked like the number should go!

4:20pm - Find the phone number elsewhere and ring Telstra faults. Have a whinge to them about how it was probably their own workmen that cut the line. The lady says she’ll send out a technician, but to have a word with them if they come back.

Wednesday 8:45am - The Telstra guys are back so I go and talk to them. They check their lists and diagrams and mess about with wires. Shortly afterwards, the line is working again.

8:55am - I try to ring Faults back from the voice line to cancel the call out. But I can’t get through; I just get a message saying they cannot connect the call… oh terrific! Is this irony or what? Two attempts and I give up… I have, after all, got better things to do.

4:45pm - The Telstra faults guy visits, only to be told it’s now working. D’oh!

I also managed to lock myself out of the house today. Well, that is, I didn’t do it… but somebody (not naming any names, but I have two house guests who were the last to leave this morning) locked the lock on the front door for which I don’t have a key, and which I subsequently leave unlocked. If it had occurred to me, I would have asked the Telstra guys working across the road to borrow a ladder, but instead I rang Peter, who wasn’t far away, and arrived with his ladder for me to shinny up to an open window, while hoping those eagle-eyed Neighbourhood Watch people I’m always reading about in their newsletters weren’t calling the police.

Well the boxes are just about unpacked and the spare room is looking halfway decent(ish) again, which is just as well because my sister and her boyfriend are coming to visit tomorrow night.

The really good news is that the real estate agent managed to find some people to move into the other flat over the weekend, so don’t have to pay any more rent on it. Mind you, it took about three hours of solid professional cleaning (thanks Mum) to get it into a state where I’d get my bond back. Maybe they were being fussy; I’m not sure how it could get so decrepit in the space of just two months.

I think every person and organisation I originally told I had moved has been told that I’ve moved back. The only ones I’m expecting any trouble from are online CD retailer ChaosMusic, who have apparently having some trouble finding the last CD of a 3 disc order I placed in late February, and The Age, who never actually responded to my e-mail request to move my newspaper subscription, but I have this fear in the back of my mind that months later when I’ve forgotten all about it, maybe a student trainee will finally find the request and action it.

No really earth shattering events this week, though one of the ladies in the supermarket asked me where my wife is. That’s a conversation I could do without having: I know she’s staunchly Catholic and would probably keel over if told the full truth straight off, so I managed to look hurried and shouted as I escaped to another aisle that "she’s gone away".

This coming Easter weekend is the "Kitten Kon" Goodies convention, which should be fun. The Goodies was one of the five biggest influences over my childhood, the others being Lego,Doctor Who, Tintin
and Usborne Books. So I’ve coughed up the cash to rub shoulders with fellow Goodies Geeks, and for the chance to see (a rather aging, I suspect) Tim Brooke-Taylor in the flesh. Or at least in his Union Jack waistcoat.