Things were going wrong, as they do

Who broke the Internet?

It started when I discovered we had mysteriously lost our internet connection. My wife told me her system was completely down too. I was at a serious disadvantage as my main devices, internet router, wife's computer and various other essential gear were all upstairs.

This region was out of bounds

It had been so because of my disability and lack of mobility since coming home from the hospital.

Our system was set up by myself and is quite complex. What is where, why it is where it is and how it all fits together is something only I know. A diagnosis of the problem would only be possible hands on, which meant that somehow I had to get upstairs with tools and check it all out.

A physiotherapist had encouraged me to exercise by stepping on and off the first step of our stairs. In theory getting to the top of the stairs was just a matter of climbing a step, then climbing a step again, until the ascent was complete.

I collected some tools together

I asked my wife to take them up. I then began the very shaky ascent of the stairs under her concerned and troubled gaze.

I made my way to where all the computer gubbins were situated. It turned out that no power was reaching any of the equipment. Why had it all stopped working like that? Definitely gubbins, probably gremlins or possibly even goblins.

We live at the edge of the countryside

Home to such goings on, we regularly suffer power cuts. To deal with this I had installed a power backup system that would cut in and maintain power for occasions like this. The trouble was that the backup system had itself had failed taking everything down with it. The simple solution was to remove the backup power supply completely and instead wire direct into mains power. This was quite a simple procedure involving moving a few items and some uncomplicated rewiring. Ten to fifteen minutes of a job.

Four hours later

And several cups of coffee and finally, with a sigh, it was all up and running.

Trying to do rewiring with just one hand, left hand at that, and ensuring it is all safe does involve taking a quite long, long period of time. Without going into too much detail, my mission was accomplished and much relieved I descended the staircase backwards, with care.

This, my first visit upstairs since the stroke, was a great success, though I was totally worn out and behaved, with some justification, like the triumphant hero. After all my wife's computer was now back under power and working as it should.

Though I may have a habit of causing some concern to those around me, it is unusual for there to not be a happy outcome. All this aside I don't think I will be able to take a job as an electrician or a steeplejack any time soon.