"Früher geht es nicht"

I've been thinking a lot about eternity today, as you do when waiting for something to be delivered. It was BT's turn to annoy me today, it seemed. Firstly, their have a stupid system re: TV/broadband of sending the box 48h before the engineer visits when Sky (for all their faults) have the engineer *shock horror* bring the box with them - saving everyone time, saving packaging, fuel and postage costs. As BT are stupid, alas, I had to wait in from 0700h to 1800h for the delivery as they use ParcelForce's cheapest service that doesn't give you any idea what time you'll get the item. Bang on 1400h, it turns out. The Engineer is due on Friday and they've thus far managed to send me 4 email reminders, 2 text-message reminders and phone me TWICE today to make sure I know I have the appointment. Given it took me eight weeks wait for said appointment (earliest they could do, allegedly), I'm hardly going to change my mind...

I've got the router Home Hub 5 set up - took 30 seconds and really didn't need the reams of instructions and over-complicated diagrams. I've got the dinky little "set top box" (stupid term given how thin tellies are these days - not that you could ever fit a Sky "set top box" on a CRT telly, really) set up - quite surprised at how small it is to be honest. It is, I think, the same YouView+ generic box that TalkTalk and others use, just tarted up in the BT livery - much like mobile phones usually are. My first foray into Broadband Extenders (LAN through power cables) has been necessary to make the blasted thing work - unlike Sky, which has WiFi for the "set top box", BT requires a wired connection and supplies a very long LAN cable for the task. This would in theory be possible but messy here so I've opted to use a couple of power sockets to do the job. I think I will be swapping one of the extenders for a 3-way extender so my PC can stop using WiFi and I can get a USB socket back! That should also cover my BluRay player and the TV and I can use the current single extender elsewhere if I need a high-speed connection - like if I want to watch movies in bed or something.

I've somehow gotten back into reading blogs as well as blogging myself lately and today I read a really interesting political piece by Pipopotamus (possibly the cutest rendering of a forename possible!) that rang true with me on many levels - "experts" with the very best intentions telling others what they should think/feel/do/want/see/etc - it's happening more and more, I fear, that those outside of the box are telling those inside what they should be doing. It's not healthy.

What else have I managed today? Well, the rats have a Polyplax spinulosa Burmeister (the spiny rat-louse) infestation, unfortunately, which seems to be causing them some discomfort. I noticed it on Josef this morning as the lice had recently fed and were dark coloured enough to see - but normally I play with the rats in the evening so probably don't notice - though I doubt they've had it more than a week or so. I got some permethrin fluid (I would ideally use Xeno but my vet can't get it for me for less than a total of about £250 to clear the infestation on all 7 rats, so I'm trying the cheaper option first to see how it goes) and treated them just before dinner - they hate me at the moment, of course. Except Jack. Jack is curled up on the back of my neck asleep and I'm having to be careful not to move suddenly and tip him on the floor! Tiny Jack's enormous brother Jamie posed for a photo this morning, which is unlike him - what a whopper!

What was dinner today? Fishfingers and red sauce! Could not be arsed!!! I have demolished a good 25% of the Pääsiäisleipä from yesterday - it's delicious. Apparently it freezes well so I'll be slicing up the rest to freeze in bags I think. Next week's The Challenge country is Russia and I've got some recipes worked out for it - there'll be no borshch as it's too bloody messy and I've made it before so it's not permitted under The Challenge Rules! It's probably going to start Thu/Fri this week and roll over into next week to be honest as next week is my first week back at work and it makes sense to prep the meals this week if I can, freeze them and have them next week! There will be stews and vegetables and drinks and maybe puddings too!

Josef is now sat behind my monitor eating his tea and giggling profusely. I need to collect him and take him home afterwards...