Gone Phut.

Still moored at Stowehill.
Total of 159 locks and 141^1/₂ miles and 1 Tunnel since 5th Nov 2006

14th March

We have been experiencing problems with our “T” mobile Datacard to the extent that we have been unable to connect to the Internet. After a phone call to daughter Tracey in London we ascertained the nearest “T” mobile shop was in Northampton so on the 13^th we caught the bus to Northampton. Now D1 & D2 buses go direct but it was our luck to get a D3 bus which went round the villages of Nether Heyford and Bugbrooke. I would not have believed that the bus could have got through some of the narrow country lanes but it did with only inches to spare at times, needless to say the journey took at least ½ an hour longer than the direct route which we caught on the return journey.
Now back to “T” mobile, we found the store and told the two assistants that their worst nightmare had just come true. The younger assistant spent over an hour with us trying to solve the problem with the help of the Technical Support team via phone. They came to the conclusion that we needed a firmware update disc and they would post one out. Again we struck problems as we have no permanent address so we gave them two alternatives, of the pub next to where we are moored or Tracey. They said they would send one to each address to ensure we got at least one copy. The only copy to arrive was Tracey’s in London so we had to wait until Saturday for Tracey to drive up to Weedon for the week-end to visit Mum on Mothering Sunday.
After spending several hours on Saturday with the new firmware card Dot and Tracey came to the conclusion that they were wasting their time as nothing was happening. On Sunday Tracey drove us to Peterborough to find another “T” mobile store and visit my cousin Pam and husband John who had some mail and parcels for us.
First Stop was “T” mobile and the young man in attendance was very knowledgeable about datacards. He could not provide us with a new card as they don’t have them in stock, but he did try the shop demo card which was an earlier version to ours and his own personal card with our sim card in them on our laptop and they both worked fine. Conclusion, one stuffed datacard. The salesman did let it slip that when he up dated his datacard from the original version he has had 6 replacements over a short period of time but hopefully the latest version has been trouble free. Next course of action was to contact the Technical Support team and order a replacement as ours was only 3 months old.
After a lot of haggling they finally agreed but where to send it? Eventually it was decided that they would send it to the pub, “The Narrowboat Inn”. So upon our return to Weedon we called at the pub to get the postcode and let the publican know what was happening and then ring the helpdesk with the required info so they could send it there. This has all been done so now we wait to see if it arrives.
In the meantime I have been working on the bathroom which is now in working order again but we will need to put some tiles around the vanity basin when we can get to a B&Q or Homebase in the not too distant future.
On the fishing front I have been very successful with some very nice specimens of Perch, Roach, Bream, with plenty of Gudgeon thrown in for fun. The one fish that has surprised me because of never having caught one before was a 5 inch specimen Ruffe (Acerina cernua) or Pope as it’s sometimes known. The Ruffe is a close family member to the Perch. It differs from Perch in that it is smaller and has spots instead of stripes on the body.
We have just heard on the radio an advert for “Jim’s Mowing” which our NZ readers will be very familiar with. Basically it is a lawn mowing franchise but the advert is offering to fly applicants to Australia to learn all about the business. We had to laugh because what does it take to learn how to mow a lawn? Even the bookwork side of the business couldn’t be that difficult could it?

More updates to follow..................To all we owe emails over the last 3 weeks we will endeavour to answer them all in the next couple of days