At last

I suppose that readers may consider achieving Internet access to be a rather trivial activity. But for someone who's been so frustrated over the last week, today's success is an enormous relief. I can't say it's entirely perfect, though. The coverage on our western side of the Malvern Hills is "2G", which is theoretically good enough for Internet, but not with the 3 network. But if I drive over to the east side, I can get satisfactory coverage, enough to post this blog, for example.

So here I am, sitting in the dark in the little Matiz, typing away with the dim screen glow lighting up my face. I'm parked just outside the Moorlands Rd house, to check the coverage here. I seem to have full strength of some signal, although I'm not sure that it shows the 3G strength - perhaps just the GPRS strength. Who knows.

It was interesting to see that there were two West Mercia Constabulary vehicles parked just behind me. Lucky I'm not paranoid, isn't it! And now a family of 4 walks past with a torch - must be going for an almost full-moon lit stroll on the common. I wonder if they're connected with the police presence.

So let me summarise the biggest lesson I learnt from the 3 experience. If it's a credit check problem, ask to speak with the credit checking department, ask for a review, and provide lots of information about how good a customer you are.

The second biggest lesson I learnt is: When you arrive in the UK, work out what your address will be, and make sure your bank account reflects that address - not sure if the correspondence address is relevant, but I made both the residential and correspondence addresses reflect the Wayfarers house. It seems that so many systems interact, and they all have to agree. Even trhough Wayfarers won't be our long-term place, it's been important to have a verifiable address.

Well tomorrow, we're going to have a weekend (since the last couple have been full-on with real estate agents, banks, etc). The plan is to drive to York for the night. We should be able to catch evensong in the minster, some sightseeing, and even do a Ghost Tour (but don't tell the girls that yet!). We'll try staying in the YHA hostel, where it's pretty cheap, and there's parking. It's partly to calibrate how far it's feasible to go for a weekend, and also what the different reactions of the different age groups will be to such touring. We're mostly waiting for reference checking and real estate processes to take their course, and there seems to be no requirement to remain local at the moment - we'll probably have better internet connectivity up north, as that's where 3 has rolled out their HSDPA "Turbo" network first. Perhaps that makes it an employment-related trip, for tax purposes!

Anyway, it's time to go back home to read a bedtime story - the Phoenix and the Carpet for the girls, and the Feynman "What do you care what other people think?" for myself. Goodnight from Moorlands Rd Malvern (if not 60a Moorlands Rd!).