In which a BT engineer visits

We've been having an ongoing problem with our phone/broadband line and today we were graced by the presence of a shiny new BT engineer.

He hummed and haahed and came into the dining room and lifted the phone. The wrong phone. The one that we only plug in when the electricity's off and the new fangled one won't work. The line was dead. I pointed him in the direction of the new fangled one and he pressed buttons and listened.

"The line is very noisy," he said. I'd already told him this. But I'm Not Qualified to know that sort of thing..

Off he popped outside into the snow and up his ladder to look at the place the wires come into the house. Me, Brian and the dog looked at feet suspended on rungs above the kitchen window.

He came indoors again and crouched over the indoor socket. Brian and I chatted in the kitchen. The dog, spotting his chance, headed fast in the direction of the engineer. I peeked into the dining room and had the horror of seeing the poor man shrugging the dog off his back. The schnauzer, sensing the need for urgency, had gone for maximum impact and had pounced. From a height.

The poor BT man was sneezing by that time too. Allergy to dogs? Or because he was lurking in places I like to hide my dust?

He tutted over various things (the router, the telephone extension lead, big gobbets of dust) while the schnauzer prowled the bottom of the other side of the door hoping for another chance to pounce.

Eventually the engineer left having disconnected a long forgotten extension (that had previously been disconnected by a different BT man) and having fixed a new front to our ancient BT socket and made it a 'master socket'.

"You'll probably find your broadband is faster now too," he promised, wafting a hand in the general direction of the chaos I like to call my computer desk.

It wasn't. In fact it wasn't working at all. I plugged it in, something the BT engineer had failed to do, and then it worked. Sort of. The phone line is still crackling. I fear we may have to go through all of this nonsense again. The schnauzer is readying his pounce.