Bridging the gap!

Everyone stop panicking, everything is OK and no drama has unfolded (except that of a non-functioning internet service... AGAIN!).

When we last blogged on Monday, the internet had been off all day but had reappeared in the early evening in time for us to post about our day. On Tuesday all was fine until around mid-morning, then it disappeared again and so it stayed, all day... and all night!

Our apartment guests checked out on Tuesday morning after a slow start to their day - we all had a nice chat about life over here, what we've been doing, what they're trying to do with their property, the various challenges etc., then we dragged them up the terraces to look at the view from up high. We also let them feed the geese with some lettuce, as they were keen to see them up close, before the time came for them to head off in the general direction of the airport. We were thrilled to find that they had very kindly left the apartment spotless - meaning that only a linen change was needed for our next set of HelpXers. The two Richards and Marissa were certainly excellent and very friendly guests and we look forward to having them back over the next few weeks when they return to do some more work on their own house.

After lunch, I headed out to buy a pile more fence posts so that I could start on 'Jeremy's fence' (puppy-proofing the garden) soon, weather permitting. I'd planned the fence out on the lawn with bamboo canes, so knew exactly what I needed, and headed to the ever reliable and economic agraria in Castellare.

61 fence posts loaded (another 25 to go), I drove back home in time to gently hammer them into position as the daylight faded.

Soon enough, Helen was coming to ask me for the car keys, clutching arms full of stuff so that she could head to Chris and Sue's to bestow a belated birthday present on Chris and then head out for another Italian lesson with Sue.

While Helen was out, I finished a few jobs as part of the kitchen 'remodel' so that everything electric had somewhere to plug in, etc. and then lit the fire and sat down on the sofa with a book until Helen came home.

With a quick, no-fuss pasta dinner (pasta and pesto), we watched an hour of TV (DVD) and then retired to bed to put an end to a frustrating day of having no internet. It's amazing how many things we rely on the internet for - blogging, keeping in touch with friends and family, work, emails about important things like when and where to collect our puppy and what time our HelpXers would be arriving, research about training puppies and introducing one to a household of cats, research about various other things, TV... and the list goes on.

So today started nice and early. Helen was determined to beat me out to set the geese free today but she wasn't quite as determined as I was, and while she was brushing her teeth I dashed out into the rain and skated across the terrace towards the gate. As usual, the geese were standing at the door waiting and came dashing out like greyhounds from a trap the second I lifted their door.

Helen was up when I got back in, so we had breakfast and cursed the satellite modem that was still telling us that we wouldn't be connecting to the rest of the world any time soon. I called Brad, the installer, and left a somewhat desperate message on his voicemail - not quite saying that my wife was preparing to hang me and then come after him, but I definitely added a touch of urgency to the request to GET OUR INTERNET WORKING soon.

We had no idea what time our helpers were due today, as we had no email connection yesterday. The last we'd heard from them was that they would stay 'nearby' in their camper van and arrive first thing in the morning, ready for work. Sure enough, it wasn't long before Nick, Tess and Kathryn rolled down the driveway in Nick and Tess's VW camper (purchased from the Netherlands and to be resold before heading home). After introductions and a coffee, we all went for a soggy walk around the property by way of orientation and to talk through the jobs we'd like to tackle over the coming couple of weeks.

That done, they dumped their bags and got changed, we had mid-morning coffee, then I set them to work collecting wood from on and around the upper donkey track while I went back to see my new friend Paolo at Frateschi's to acquire some concrete for the fence posts and another wheelbarrow to speed the moving of this new wood collection back to the new storage area near the house.

I got back in time to head to the donkey track myself before lunch and, with my Silky saw courtesy of my father-in-law, took down a few small trees along the donkey track.

As was heading back to the house for a length of rope, Brad called me back on the mobile phone (yes, the mobile phone that now HAS signal and WORKS at the house!).

I explained the problem - his first advice was to check that the cable ends were OK, and he gave me a test to work out if the cable was connecting the LNB and the modem. If the cable was OK, then he would talk me through setting a computer into alignment mode so that I could tweak the dish itself in case it had got blown out of position.

After gaining access to both ends of the cable, it was immediately obvious that the satellite end of it had rusted and the decayed to the point of snapping when I touched it. Fortunately, I had some spare ends for the cable, so I trimmed it back and fitted them, reconnected it all, and as if by magic... it worked! I was very happy to have fixed it so easily, although a bit annoyed that I hadn't checked the cable myself earlier, rather than make the assumption that it had been installed well in the first place and not with what must have been second-hand cable - and pleased to see that Helen had taken down the noose.

Soon, the damp HelpXers arrived back at the house for lunch (did we explain we have three of them for the first couple of days? Tess and Nick asked if their fried Kathryn could join in the fun and sleep in their camper before she headed off to London).

Everyone seemed to enjoy Helen's leek and potato soup - just what the doctor ordered on a damp day like this. It wasn't cold really, but definitely damp, all three of them were covered in mud, and Nick had already ripped his trousers.

After lunch I washed up while the guys went back to work collecting and ferrying wood to the house and Helen went back to the office to check in with work to see what she'd missed out on over the last 30 hours now that the internet was functioning.

By the time I joined our Kiwi trio, it was already 3pm, so with both barrows and some bungy cords we made a concerted effort to clear the pile of wood from the drive before they clocked off. We now have a very good new pile of kindling and starter logs, all in need of cleaning up and cutting before stacking, but for a few hours' work, a good effort.

While they went for showers in the apartment I started constructing an archway from fence posts, ready to start the fencing either tomorrow or Friday, while Helen went back up the terraces with the hedge trimmers to attack more brambles in the last hour of daylight.

The rain started again in earnest at around 5pm, so with the light disappearing too, we called it a day, put the geese to bed, rounded up the cats and went in to start on dinner for the five of us: vegetable chilli with rice, although with the chilli already having been cooked at the weekend, it'll be nice and easy!