The future

I'd nearly finished my lunch when the door bell went bing. A courier was at the door not expecting anyone to be in. We walked down the street and after having a rummage in his van (a bit like a jumble sale) he produced a package for me. Our client have sent me a HP Chromebook to use instead of my own company laptop.

After work I took my friend for his walk, and when I came back I went to look at the new plastic pole that Orange have installed - where the delivery van was parked at lunch time. There is nothing on this pole yet, but the one at the bottom of the lane that was installed over three years ago has acquired fibre and a distribution block recently. The two houses at the end of street below us have their copper phone lines from our lane, unlike the rest of their street which has had fibre for at least 2 years.

The national fibre map now shows the two houses at the end of the cross street are having fibre installed while our house still shows up as on request - which we have already made.

I'm guessing that they will run fibre up the lane and to this new pole, and then from here to the house behind it (in the picture) and the one opposite. From this pole there is only one house left to do on the lane - ours - but I don't think this pole will help directly as there is a house in the way!

We're one of the last houses in the district stuck on ADSL, everyone else is on fibre to the premises, giving up to 2 Gbit downloads, while we are trapped on 7 MBit downloads - such a difference it's hard to comprehend...

After dinner I made a further 2 kg batch of mirabelle jam, another 7 jars. I knew that these were a bit on the ripe side, so I gave them a longer boil, to  make sure it would set a bit better than some of the other batches which were a bit loose.