Sunday 23rd May 2010 - New phones

Today we woke to the sound of our neighbour playing piano. It was slightly less annoying than the church bell and definitely less annoying than when the dogs on the other side start. I took my breakfast out to the garden and read a chapter of my book. It was very hard to get on with some house work. It was so lovely and warm out, and relaxing sitting by the pond. I got myself inside and got on with taking down the net curtains for washing and washing the windows. I got as far as cleaning the frames and window sills, and the front door, but there is still lots more to do. I had to leave the job and find a phone shop to replace Kat's lost phone.

I checked online and found that the Maidstone shop was open. Unfortunately, when I got there I found that it wasn't. I got the T-mobile phone number from the net via my mobile and rang it from a nearly phone box. It seemed weird standing in a call box with two mobile phones but I didn't want to pay for the calls when I could get them free! When I eventually worked out which “option” I needed in their menus, I got through to customer services. They called a few other stores for me and found that they were closed too. They suggested that I go to a store tomorrow. I asked if Carphone Warehouse could help and they said that they could. So I went to find it. Unfortunately they couldn't help as the phone insurance is connected to T-mobile. I phoned Kat to tell her the bad news. We were both upset and decided that we'd need to meet up tomorrow and I'd need to get a long lunch break to get this sorted.

Before going back to the car, I decided to try the Fones4U shop to see if they could do anything to help. They were brilliant. Nancy was extremely helpful. She explained to me that I could set up a new contract with them and they would cover the cost of the remainder of the contract. Kat is now the very happy owner of a Nokia X6 on Orange network and a Nokia 1661 for her T-mobile sim card (when we get the replacement) that she can carry on using until the end of the current contract. While we were chatting, I decided that it would be a good opportunity to sort out my phones and switch to just one contract and save money. So we traded in my two phones and they have covered the cost of cancelling my 3 contract. My Vodafone contract was already up for renewal and they have covered the final month's payment. I just need to contact them to down grade it to a Pay as You Go, and I have been given a Nokia 1661 for that sim card. I had to persuade 3 to give me my PAC code. It was hard as they were insistent that I don't leave them. My 3 phone number is being transferred to a Vodafone contract, and should be active by Wednesday. I now have a Nokia E72 which is like a bit like a Blackberry. It is lovely, as all new phones are! It even came with a little bluetooth earpiece, a case, a car phone holder and a phone charm. I'm sure I was in the shop over two hours. They gave me a pre-paid credit card for Kat with £10 on, and £10 plus the funds to cover the bills for the phones on a pre-paid card for me. I'm sure I was in the shop about 2 hours.

I went straight down the motorway to find Kat as she was very keen to get her new toy. She was well happy with it. I didn't get home until nearly 6 so there was no time to eat before going bowling. My scores were 124, 140 & 119. When I got home, I cooked dinner and put up the net curtains downstairs. I think they will need replacing next time they need washing. I had to cut about a foot of material off each end of the front window one as it was ripped at the top, probably where the other curtain had been catching on it.