Notes from the side of a volcano:

1. Daughter-Two had a bad day at swimming yesterday, all because she saw her teacher in the "big pool" when we arrived and was worried that meant she might have to go in the big pool and she was NOT happy about that. In fact, she was still in the learner's pool - but by then her equilibrium was thrown. But she was brilliant at the hospital dentist on Tuesday, where they gave her a clean and inspected what she calls her "shark teeth". (Like a shark's extra row of teeth, she has a tooth growing behind the others). The dentist warned again of expensive orthodontist's bills looming.

2. Loved listening to Michael Stipe on BBC radio, he reminds me so much of certain people in this house and wonderful to hear him sounding so relaxed and self-aware.

3. An internet craze which has passed me by until now, until Daughter-One mentioned it, is "birds with arms". Some people definitely have too much time on their hands ... but I couldn't help but laugh.

Brooding-bird

That's enough for now

4. It was great yesterday and today to get back to scrapping more of the USA trip album

(Grid templates by Ali Edwards and Anna Aspnes, boat transfer by Anna Aspnes)

5. Easter is around the corner, and here's a sneak peek of an Easter-inspired kit coming to the store this weekend:

1. I was playing "Race to the ferry" with Daughter-Two yesterday afternoon (a French vocab boardgame) when Daughter-One yelled out "is your internet down?". And it was. And it remained down even after I turned the power on and off twice and pulled out and reconnected all the relevant leads and even several which were no doubt completely irrelevant.

So I needed to ring Telecom but how could I get the number with no internet? Luckily I remembered that last week the latest copies of the telephone directories were delivered (resulting in much scoffing and tutting by yours truly about waste of trees etc etc) and they were still sitting at the bottom of the path waiting to be dumped in the paper recycling bin. I went down and retrieved them (slightly soggy as they were) and found the ISP number and found myself talking to "Sam" in Manila. Sam aked me to try turning it on and off and I told Sam very politely where to put that piece of advice.

I spent nearly two hours on the phone with him trying various fixes until he told me he was going to "escalate me to Tier Two".

He made this sound like the most exciting thing that had happened to me for years.

"Do not worry" he said "I am going to escalate you to Tier Two, just bear with me and I will make some notes and them I will escalate you, now here is the number you need to give when you get to Tier Two, you will need that so have you written it down?, OK, now I am going to escalate you to Tier Two".

I felt like I should be clipping on a three point harness and a helmet.

Sadly being escalated proved a dreadful anti-climax. I was on hold for another 20 minutes then just as someone said "hell-" the cordless phone went dead as the battery finally gave out.

So I got out the emergency corded phone (see, I TOLD you all that emergency preparation would come in useful) and called back, getting a voice-activated-recording-of-a-Stepford-wife-sounding woman who asked me why I was calling. I said "my internet connection is down" and she replied "OK, you're telling me you have problems with your email account" and put me through to a nice woman in Manila who said "hello, you are ringing about your email account?". I said "no, that is what your stupid voice activated woman said but actually I need you to escalate me to Tier Two immediately .. stat.. etc etc" (luckily I had the magic number Sam had ordered me to write down).

Turns out the Tier Two team is actually here in NEW ZEALAND. I felt very important.

Well, I did until they said it was now too late in the evening for them to do anything about it and they would call me back the next morning.

Of course, they never did. I rang in the afternoon and again got computerised Ms Stepford who asked "why are you calling?" and I said "internet connection" and this time she replied "Oh, you are telling me you are having problems with your internet connection. Most common internet connection problems can actually be solved by disconnecting the modem from the power source ...so I said "Oh, just SHUT UP" and the computerised voice immediately stopped, there was a short silence and then it said "I am transferring you to the technical help team".

That was seriously wierd.

If they can programme a computer to recognise when someone has had enough, you would think they would be able to provide a reliable internet service wouldn't you?

And when I finally spoke to a real person, they said they now knew the problem was not just with my connection but with the connection for several surrounding streets.

So that was three hours of my life I will never get back.

2. Being without the internet for so long was seriously disconcerting. I actually felt quite anxious at being out of touch and not being able to check my email at least. Although not being able to "just check this, just google that etc etc" did free up a lot of time (once I had got off the phone to the ISP that is). Daughter-One said the same, which is good.

I went to the library down the road to check my email and do a few other essential things. Next to me was a very large, sweaty, and somewhat less than fragrant man who was jumping from computer to computer as his free time ran out on each one. I've seen him there before, waiting for them to open the doors first thing in the morning, and he appears to spend all day in the library just watching youtube videos etc. He was listening to music through headphones but the sound was seeping out and I glanced over to see that, as well as listening to Roberta Flack crooning:

"Lying here next to you
Time just seems to fly
Needing you more and more
Let's give love a try"

he was also very busy on an internet dating site.

Which didn't so much put me off using the library computers (though I did reach for the alcohol hand gel) as make me seriously wary of online dating should I ever find myself single. So take this as another reminder that you never know who really is on the other side of the computer ...

3. After spending hours on the phone and suffering severe internet withdrawal symptoms I felt in need of relaxation, so before I got into bed I went to spray my pillow with the lovely rose scented linen spray The Husband got me for Christmas. Sadly I must have had the shakes ( a symptom of google deprivation perhaps?) and dropped it on the floor and the whole bottle just cracked and the stuff flooded out everywhere in a huge puddle that I had to mop up with a towel. But it seeped into the cracks of the wooden floor and we spent the whole night in a room so highly scented it made breathing extremely interesting. The house does smell nice still today though.

4. I have got Daughter-One's toddler album back from the printers and it looks great.

Here are a few of the final pages: