Aw Diddums

Mood: Headachy
Listening to: Quietness

Mum has 'the lurgy' and has had it for several days now - every day she seems worse instead of better. Very depressing. On top of that, she said this morning that her phone wasn't working. The broadband was operating as usual.

I spent most of the day trying to fix it, emailing Big Sister for suggestions and scratching my head. The pattern that slowly emerged was that the phone only worked if broadband was off. Big Sister suggested that one of the splitters was damaged, and I should swap them with the spare one. So I replaced the one upstairs, accidentally cutting off a phone conversation between her and Mum. But that was it - the splitter I replaced was the one acting up. Big Sister said that's the one that came with the router. Hmm.

She asked Mum why she rang her up, coughed loudly in her ear, and rang off again. Presumably that was when I accidentally interrupted the phone call, but I couldn't help laughing.

Surely one day it will be much easier to discover which tiny part of a complex system has backfired, rather than spending all day trying to make sense of it.

Anyway, thanks to our persistence, everything's hunky dory again - except that, when I said I should set everything back to normal (plug the phone back in downstairs instead of keeping it attached to a long cable we now have trailing up the stairs), I was told 'no' - I'm not allowed to touch it in case it all goes pear-shaped again. Mum's just enjoying the breathing space of Everything Actually Working. She's also gone to bed early - I'll follow her example after this as I've been feeling headachy all day (and all yesterday). It wears thin when every day you're trying to get to grips with organizing stuff, and every day you feel below par for no obvious reason. I know I should just get on with stuff anyway - I haven't caught Mum's lurgy even though I've been trapped in this house with her all this time - well, not trapped with her, but trapped with her coughing and hacking and teary-eyed-ness, and the terrifying tissues draped over her face. Makes me throw open the door and take deep breaths of the pine-fresh air outside.

But, when I was outside bringing in the washing, I embarked on a little fantasy that she had the plague, and I was here looking after her selflessly, keeping bravely away from the rest of humanity so that we wouldn't spread it further. So far I'm surviving! Below par, but it could have been a lot worse. Please drop your baskets of food at the end of the driveway.

Wish she would get better.