It’s a damp and dull day but we set out bravely, first calling at…

At the deli

…Myddelton’s deli, where we had our usual coffee.

Cat in view
Photo by Tigger

On the way round Myddelton Square, we spotted the two cats. Tigger photographed this one.

Aboard the 30
Photo by Tigger

Afterwards, we walked up to the main road and caught a number 30 bus.

Euston Station

This brought us to Euston Station where we are to meet a friend.

Flinders and cat

We visited Captain Matthew Flinders and his cat and…

Caffè Nero

…retired to Caffè Nero to await our friend.

Taking the tube

We took the tube to Colliers Wood.

The sun shone

We left the tube at Colliers Wood and took to the streets. Unexpectedly, the sun broke through the clouds.

Singlegate School

We passed this rather fine Arts & Crafts-style school, dating from 1897.

Christ Church, Colliers Wood

This is Christ Church Colliers Wood, built in 1874.

Electricity pylon

The local scene is dominated by electricity pylons though why they are needed I do not know.

Dunelm

We visited a store called Dunelm that specialises in products for the home. We had a good look around but didn’t buy anything.

The cafe

At least there was a cafe where we stopped for tea and biscuits.

River Wandle

After tea, we set out again, crossing the Wandle river on the way.

Aboard a bus to Wimbledon

We then boarded a bus to Wimbledon.

Patisserie Valérie

As it was becoming late, we looked around for somewhere to have lunch. Rather than hunt around, we chose Patisserie Valérie which was nearby.

Part of Wimbledon

We left the restaurant and walked in the street to find a bus to our next destination.

Aboard the 93

We boarded a number 93 for Putney Bridge.

St Mary’s Purney

We left the bus near Putney Bridge and walked across the bridge.

The Thames from Putney Bridge

The bridge itself is not very beautiful but does provide fine views of the Thames. The sun had disappeared again and the weather was dull and cloudy.

Cormorant drying his wings

We saw a number of cormorants, including one fishing, and spotted this one holding his wings out to dry in the cormorant manner.

Having crossed Putney Bridge, we arrived on the north side of the Thames in Fulham.

Sir W. Powell’s Almshouses

We photograph these almshouses, originally founded in the 17th century but rebuilt in 1869.

Pre-prep School

This pre-prep school in Fulham High Street was built in the 1890s and still operates as a school.

Aboard the 14

I was glad when we boarded a number 14 bus for Russell Square.

The roads were crowded with traffic and progress painfully slow, making an already long journey even longer and more tedious. We reached Russell Square at last and from there walked to Euston Station.

Aboard the 30

At Euston, we caught a number 30 bus to the Angel. It was already pretty full but we found seats at the back. I was very glad when we reached our stop and could make the short walk to home.

If I have to chose a highlight of the day, it was seeing the cormorants on the Thames, fishing, flying and drying wings. They are fascinating birds.

(For the context of this post, see this and previous posts.)

I didn’t mention it in the previous posts but this afternoon, while I was at home alone, the landline phone (which we normally never use and only have for our broadband connection) rang briefly. Intrigued, I went to look and, on trying it, found that the phone could neither make or receive calls. This suggested to me that someone somewhere was working on our phone line.

When we returned from our pizza supper, I tried the phone again and found it working perfectly. I then checked the router but it was still showing a red light and my iPhone was still reporting “No Internet Connection”.

We had just settled down for the evening when my mobile rang. It was someone at Zen. He told me that (as I had guessed) an engineer had performed the necessary work at the exchange and that our Internet connection should now be working. I pointed out that the router was showing a red light but I fired up the PC to try the connection. I was not surprised when it didn’t work.

Now followed a session of going through the router’s settings and checking what the lights were doing at various points. I had done this so often on Tuesday and had all the usernames and passwords written down on my notebook that the work proceeded easily and quickly. The first attempt ended in failure but a second attempt, plus pressing a particular button in the router at the right moment followed and… bingo! We have lift-off!

Yes, our Internet connection is working again. This evening, we were able to “stream” a video using the connection and without resorting to hotspotting from our mobiles. This post also comes to you via that Internet connection.

As you might have read in my previous posts, I was not expecting the problem to be solved so soon but I am happy to be proved wrong.

For the context of this post, see the previous four posts.)

Not having heard a peep from Zen following the departure of the Openreach engineer, yesterday, I phoned them this morning. When calling Zen, as with most companies, you have first to listen to the dratted menu and press the number for the service you require. Not hearing anything that seemed to match my needs, I asked for technical support.

The technical support lady was, as Zen operatives generally are, friendly, polite and ready to help. I outlined the problem and said I wanted to speak to someone with whom I could have a serious conversation about what was being done about it. The support person said she would try to contact the Faults Manager if I would kindly consent to being put on hold for a moment. Naturally, I agreed.

After a while, the support person returned to tell me that the Faults Manager would call me later in the day. They had first to contact Openreach to find times when an engineer would be available. Then they would contact me to make a definite appointment. This engineer, apparently, has be one who is specially trained in such matters.

I suspect that said engineer will arrive at the earliest next Monday, meaning that we will have at least three more days without connectivity. That makes the arrival this morning of the usual monthly rental invoice seem rather ironic. I think that when connectivity is finally restored, Zen should find some way to compensate us for the loss of service and its consequences.

Later…

The Faults Manager called me just after 11 am. He confirmed that a specialist engineer was needed but that a home visit would not be necessary. The job could be done at the “cabinet” (the green roadside control box). There’s a possibility that this could happen tomorrow or not until Tuesday. He will phone me later today to let me know exactly when it will be done.

In reponse to my question about compensation, I was told that this would be given at the rate of £8 for day without service, added as a credit on our landline phone bill.

I must say that I am sceptical that the problem will be resolved as easily as that. Equally, I will believe the story about compensation if and when I see the credit on our bill. Let’s hope my scepticism proves to be undfounded in both cases.

Either way, I will Let you know!

(For the context of this post, see the three previous posts.)

Yesterday evening, I received a further phone call from Zen, this time to arrange a time when an engineer could visit. We agreed a morning visit for the next day (today) in the morning. As is usual in such cases, they could say only that he would arrive between 8 am and 1 pm.

This morning, then, I rose bright and early to be ready by 8 am. Needless to say, the doorbell did not ring at 8 am or, indeed, for some time after that.

At 9:23 I received a text from Openreach: “Our engineer Joe [mobile number] has your job and will call you before working on your task [URL]”. The URL leads to a website with a diagram showing progress of the “task”:

As you can see, at that point it was standing only at “Engineer Allocated”.

At 10:29, the engineer rang to say he would arrive in about 20 minutes. He was right on time!

There then followed an hour during which the engineer performed tests and then made numerous phone calks to various agencies including Zen. This ended with him departing to the exchange to do some work there. He would then phone me to know whether I could now connect to the Internet. If so, the job would be complete; if not, he would have to come back here again.

Whatever the engineer did at the exchange did not produce the hoped-for result. At just after 1 pm he was back with me, saying that it was now thought there a problem with the router itself. After some more tests and attempts to obtain a result, done in consultation over the phone with Zen, work stopped as no further progress could be made today.

That of course leaves us without an Internet connection (apart from our iPhone hotspots) for another day. I received a call during the work from the Zen person, R, who called on Monday and he said he will call me again later today. Perhaps I can then discuss with him a way forward out of this apparent impasse.

(For the context of this post, see the previous two posts.)

By late afternoon, the outage suffered by Zen seemed have have been dealt with though any hopes that with the return of service the new router would start working proved futile. “No Internet Connection” continued to be the mantra of the day.

Once again, I called Zen support. I found myself at number 7 in the queue but hung on grimly. My patience was rewarded when, at 4:36 pm, a human answered the phone. That phone call was to last 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Having checked that I had indeed set up the router properly, using the cables supplied, the support person had me log on to the router and go into the settings. There ensued a long session during which I alternated sitting at the computer changing settings in the router with dashing across to the router to check what it was doing, to press buttons or to unplug and plug in cables. I will not bore you by explaining in detail what we did. Suffice it to say that we did it not once but several times and that each attempt ended in failure.

At the end of the hour and a quarter the verdict was that it would need an egineer to call at the flat and deal with the recalcitrant router hands-on. I await a phone call or email informing me of the time of the visit, which will probably occur tomorrow.

It’s disappointing that the day has ended without a resolution of the problem. I am not allowing myself to be optimistic about tomorrow, either. Let’s just wait and see.

In the meantime, we can access the Internet by using our iPhone hotspots so we are not cut off. (You wouldn’t want to see my mobile phone bill, though!)

I await with interest the final outcome of this strange saga.