out of communication

Over the past few weeks I've noticed that the phone doesn't hold its charge very long, and friends have commented on the occasional "beep" that they could hear, which I couldn't, I got temporary silence instead.

It seemed clear that the phone was poorly, and I decided to buy a new one, a simple corded one, not another portable one on a docking station.  I don't like the infra red all the time, and I'm certain that corded phones are more reliable.  Now that mobile phones are the norm, the convenience of portability is less important.

Whilst we were suffering from flu, we weren't interested in using the phone.  A couple of times it rang, but the reception wasn't good.  We didn't have the energy to do anything about it.  It could wait.

One day we picked it up to use it and it was very crackly.  Then it was worse ... it was silent!  We forced ourselves to go out an buy a phone.  We came home, unpacked it and plugged it in.  It, too, was silent.

Drat, it was the phone line, not the phone!  I filled in a report form on-line, the broadband was fine.  I carried my mobile around with me.  nothing.

Next day we drove into town and called in at the showroom, where the young man allowed me to use one of their phones to call the service centre.  After hanging on the phone for about twenty minutes, I finally arranged for an engineer to call round.  The next evening.

I was given a three hour time slot, and the engineer arrived early on in the slot.  He established that the line was viable where it entered the house, then asked to come inside.  He offered to put on plastic overshoes so as not to make the house muddy!  Ten out of ten for consideration, Virgin:-) 

There was no dialling tone inside the house.  In next to no time, he'd removed the socket from the wall, found some of the contacts to be rusting, replaced the socket, tested the line and was on his way.

Brilliant.  I'm now back in phone contact with the world.