Tuesday 15th August
Overcast skies move in overnight bringing with them rain, a misty drizzle that looks set to stay for the day. The humidity must be around 100%. The temperature forecast around 32c
We had planned to drive to New Hope today but we will give that a miss and stay at home to watch over the house and the trades that are here.
The tiler will start to lay tiles in earnest today and the new carpet will be laid in the basement. As we draw closer to the day of the wedding luau it’s going to be critical that the jobs are completed so that the finishing touches can be applied before we put the house back together, it’s going to be very tight. The kitchen and laundry are now off limits making the sun room (now our temporary kitchen) isolated and only available from outside.
The carpet layers arrive first to remove the flood damaged carpet and underlay they sweat buckets in the basements closed environment. Thankfully the basement is a walk in one so that are able to leave the door open to remove the old and bring in the new. The tiler is next, Jay likes to talk about Australia, he is ready to quit the US and is interested in what we think his prospects would be. He is a builder, carpenter, tiler, he would easily gain work in Australia. His job today is a fiddly one, the spaces are small but there are lots of cuts to make around pipe work and door trims etc. in the meantime we spend our day, Amanda reading and me writing, as well as dealing with T-Mobile, they are as bad as Telstra, maybe even worse. I have a simple question, I don’t want ring them, call centres can’t understand my Aussie accent in Australia, what’s going to happen if the agent on the phone is expecting a US voice. I decide to do a voice chat, you can ask a simple question and hopefully receive a quick answer in reply. We know that we can use our US SIM cards overseas but we may need to register a social security number which of course we don’t have, we could use Troy’s but if they do a check that isn’t going match our phone account details. My question is “I am travelling to Europe going through several countries then on to Singapore before returning home can I use my US phone account” careful of course not to say where home is. The answer is simple yes or no, but they can’t check my plan from my phone number, weird. They transfer me to a person who can help, I’ve used chat lines a few times it cuts through the accents and phone line faults but to be put on hold is a new experience. Every two minutes I am advised of a new wait time, I watch it go down from 17 seconds to 0 seconds then up to 9 seconds then down again, and up again for 30 minutes I patiently wait. Melanie by first contact Has dumped me “Sorry we can’t assist you at this time please call back” My ears start to emit steam, my blood boiling I hit the chat button again. This time I am greeted by Lacey “How can I help you today” I type my frustration at being dumped ” Can you help me”, I ask. Yes is the response tell me what plan you are on, you would think that they would have this information right! I have no idea so ask her to wait a few moments while I log into my account to find the details. By the time I have the details Lacey too, has dumped me, twice in one day it’s too much. Now barely containing my anger I stab at the chat button again, this time Jairo responds with the standard “How can I help you today” I respond asking this person to look at my previous chats and come back to me, he does so with apologies and confirms my original question, I tell him our plan details, the answer is yes we can. Overly suspicious of the simple answer I confirm with him again and again he responds just turn on roaming and your good to go in all of those countries you visit. Too easy has to be a catch somewhere, problem is we are not going to find out until we use the number in Europe. Stay posted.
An hour or so has gone by at this time, the carpet layers covered in sweat climb out of their subterranean workplace to announce the job is done, come see! And so it is, newly laid carpet from wall to wall looks great. The tiler continues on until later completing most of the kitchen, bar a small space where the fridge is, that he will lay tomorrow. All looks good, on track, but still plenty to do.
Troy is bringing home Korean takeaway should be interesting a new experience for us. Everyone once again gathers in the sunroom for our take out meal, we have scrounged up paper plates and plastic cutlery only the wine glasses are real. As the night draws to a close the misty rain is still falling the temperature dropping to around 23c. The forecast tomorrow is for sunny weather but the humidity will still be heavy and high.