The packing is almost done, the satnav ready with directions printed off to sneer at the satnav and sandwiches made for the journey. According to the map directions the journey time to Great Yarmouth is 5 hours which seems rather excessive as I'm sure it took me about 3 and a half to Norwich and it's only about 30 minutes further. Still that was nearly 20 years ago and there may well be more tractors about when I hit East Anglia.
Further preparations have also seen me being dragged into the 21st century and get a smartphone on contract. Having only ever had hand me down pay as you go phones "in case of emergency" I thought it time to bite the bullet as there was a good offer on tying in with our landline. The wife was so impressed that she wanted one as well and seemed pleased when I told her I could have 3 accounts. Sure enough a couple of days later we walked out of the Virgin store with his and hers Blackberrys and after charging Alison's overnight she was piqued to discover hers not working. Wanting Bethany and myself out of the way whilst she awaited the hairdresser I walked into town and addressed the problem back at the store. I had noticed that the SIM card appeared to be damaged and they agreed but said that I had to phone the helpline in order to get a new one sent out. Leaving the store slightly bemused I called them on my phone but we seemed to confuse each other and it appeared to be a massive problem that I could not give her the phone number as the SIM card was faulty.
The result was that I had one hand tied up on the phone whilst trying to take the SIM card out of Alison's phone with the other hand, dodging the showers in the entrance to the shopping mall whilst Bethany was starting to get fractious as we had not moved for a while and I was struggling to understand the woman on the other end of the phone due to a combination of a poor reception and a strong South African accent. We agreed that it was best if I ring back on the landline when I got home as I could not read my phone number to her at the same time as talking to her as the phone was new to me and she said that she would register the fault with the technical department with whom, it seemed to me, she wanted to transfer me to.
When I did call later on I gave them the code number on the SIM card and after a few personal details they said they would send a new one out. Simple as that but, unfortunately for Alison, it is due to arrive after we have left.
Frustrated by that encounter with a phone company I set out for another as Alison wanted to keep her old number meaning that she had to ask her current provider for a PAC number that could then be passed to Virgin. Seeing the Vodafone store over the road I thought to call in, get the number and when I called Virgin to re-report the fault give them the number - two birds and all that. Sure enough the store is nothing more than a 3D catalogue and was told that I would have to phone up for the number making me wonder what the point of the stores are.
As Alison did not have enough credit on her phone I called from my Vodafone pay as you go to use up the credit hoping it did not confuse them. Again simply enough they said they would text the PAC number to Alison's phone and it should be about 30 minutes. After waiting longer I could not put off the call to Virgin any more and we are still waiting for the text the following day. Something to sort out when we return as there is little to do without the SIM card anyway.
To cap it all Alison's hairdresser did not turn up. Christ I'm looking forward to this holiday.
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