Weekly Rundown: The Back To School Edition

Considering this was supposed to be a fairly quiet and relaxing sort of a week, it's been a very busy week after all. Now that the summer holidays have ended we're back to our regular routine, which meant back to dog training with Tara on Wednesday.

Now I was dreading the dog training class this week. I could just imagine what was going to happen. Tara's not seen most of these dogs for almost two months. We will walk into the class and she's going to go all hyper and crazy like the lunatic labrador that she is. Well, she didn't. She was incredibly well behaved and aside from a bit of creepy-crawlying when she was supposed to be lying down and staying, she did exactly what I wanted her to.

I was a little bit shocked.

She's just turned three this week so maybe we're beginning to see the start of the latest chapter of Tara. Perhaps she's mellowing out into a lovely mature labrador. I'd like to believe it. Right now she's lying on the sofa beside me, tail resting on my lap beside my computer, snoring her little head off. On the other hand, perhaps she's just lulling me into a false sense of security and will be a complete horror next week...

Tara being mellow, courtesy of Mr Click

This week has also seen us continue our ongoing battle with Vodafone. Part of me thinks that this saga deserves a post all of its own. It certainly is a saga. Suffice to say on Thursday afternoon the mobile phone signal disappeared. Again. Anyone following this blog over the last few months will know that we've had some kind of service disruptions each month for the last three months, it wouldn't be such an issue if it was a little disruption but it's never for just a day or so, it's always for several days and they don't seem inclined to do much about it unless you pester them.

We spent most of the afternoon and evening waiting for a manager to call us back before deciding to go on chat to be told that there was no problem in our area (when we'd already been told there was, and the ten or so people on Facebook with the same problem seemed to confirm this) and that to speak to a manager we'd have to wait 24 to 48 hours. Considering this was the exact opposite of what we'd been told before, we were a wee bit peeved. We said as much to Nora, the oh-so-helpful chat agent we were speaking to, before suggesting that if they couldn't help us we would switch our contract to someone who could.

After learning a cancellation would cost over £600 we kicked up a bit of a stink before being transferred through to Ross, the most helpful guy in the whole of Vodafone. For the first time he actually looked back at our notes and went out of his way to help us out. The result, we are getting compensation for all the disrupted service. Of course, we still have no phone signal in town like everyone else on the island with Vodafone and everyone who speaks to them gets a different message about when it'll be fixed.

I'm reserving judgement on the whole shebang until it's all working again but any more hiccups like this and I'll definitely be looking to switch. Though apparently this downtime is because they're going to make things better. We live in hope!

Aside from returning to dog training and verbal sparring with Vodafone I've been doing more of the same. I've jumped on the loom band bandwagon and have been making attempts at making bracelets (badly). I've not really touched my poor sock this week but I have been working on my Finish This Book.

I've also finally finished reading The Plague Dogs and moved on to a much quicker read; the first in the Hamish Macbeth series Death of a Gossip. Mr Click really enjoyed it and I can see why, it's a nice easy read where the story is gradually unfolding. As of yesterday I was over halfway through it so I'm aiming to finish it tonight before seeing what else I have on the bookcase.

This week coming? Well I'm starting to get my Christmas shopping in order. I have lists and lists of things I want to buy, so I'm going to sit down, work out my budget and get that all organised. We've also got to book more stuff for graduation this week, not to mention more dog training. At least we've got tomorrow off so I can relax a little bit before diving back into work again.