A few months ago my son bought himself an X-Box games consul. To say I was against this would be to understate the issue, but he had vouchers and money from his birthday and made all sorts of promises about how little he would use it, how school grades wouldn’t suffer….you get the picture. I can’t be a totally mean mummy all the time.

In setting the wretched thing up he somehow managed to convince my husband to give him his credit card number and by mistake he took out a so called ‘gold membership’. Silver membership is free, gold most certainly isn’t….and involves monthly charges….you can see where this is going, can’t you…?

Last month said lad’s dad had a go at stopping the subscription…he thought he had it sussed, he thought it was sorted….until a charge cropped up on the credit card bill again.

At that point he called in the cavalry.

Yes, that’s me.

I have terrier tendencies. I don’t give up. But as it turns out, I do get very, very annoyed!

So yesterday at 4.30 after a nice cup of tea I set to: Found the website, aha…we need to sign in…for some reason this was done using the boy’s sister’s email account. Ok done that. Oh, we need a code…only the sister knows the code and she has disappeared without a trace and isn’t answering her phone….call round all said daughter’s friends to get the code….she says she will message it to me….only she makes an error in the code. It takes me half an hour to figure out that the code might be wrong. Start again with correct code. The website should now send a  code to daughter’s email which will allow me to access the membership details and alter them. Try multiple times. No code is received through the ether. Spend half an hour finding out that that particular part of the website isn’t working today.

Decide to try the phone. Ask for a service call. Am pleasantly amazed when the phone rings within 30 seconds. Somewhat less amazed when the person on the other end isn’t a person at all, but an automated voice asking me to punch in numbers which it then fails to recognize and we are finally cut off. Realize that I need to speak to a person. A real human being. In English would be nice as we are dealing with technology here that I don’t understand in any language.

Discover that none of the phone numbers on the X-Box site can be connected to by anyone living outside the USA. Spend 15 minutes going through the website looking for something European. Finally manage to get onto a site for Switzerland and ring the phone number.

A person answers. Hallelujah.

A whispering German speaking at the speed of light and talking about things that I don’t understand.

Can I identify myself. Yes I can. Can I provide the last 4 digits of my husband’s credit card? Whaaaaat?

Send boy on a mission. Successful 10 minutes later.

Am then given 3 different options of how we can sort out the problem. Opt for the first. Boy is shouting at me when he realizes what I’m asking for. At the same time the automated call back thingumajig is calling on the same line again and won’t hang up . Can’t work out how to shut the ringing up without losing the whispering German who I now am unable to hear due to the constant ringing in my ear and boy shouting at me.

(At this point dear reader I have reached the point of being somewhat flustered)

Finally crack. Scream at the boy. The German may have got screamed at a bit too as I have asked him several times to speak slower and louder and he does not manage to oblige on either front and I do not understand what he is saying mainly because I can not hear what he is saying.

Finally give the phone to boy and tell him to sort out his own b***** problem. X-Box privileges are withdrawn for the foreseeable future…read forever…

Reach for the gin.

Boy has done the trick. The problem has been sorted. I even receive an email confirming the fact.

I am a wet dishcloth. I have spent 2 1/2 hours of my life on this. My blood pressure has reached the stars.

Boy says he will never do anything like this again ever, even though it was all a mistake in the first place.

My question to you is whether you think these companies make it well nigh impossible to sort these problems out for a reason? Personally I think they do.

Sorry for my rant, but think yourselves lucky that I didn’t blog yesterday. Today you are getting the calmed down version 🙂

Aaaaargh. Who would have kids? Or kids with X-Boxes at least.

Have a nice weekend folks.

Helen

So, that’s almost it then. School goes back on Monday. I can’t believe that five weeks are already over. Where has the summer gone? It’s been a funny one this year. A very mixed bag, so to speak.

Unfortunately for the kids, summer in Switzerland seems to be starting up right about now. It’s going to be 34 degrees on Monday. Just what you want when you’re sitting in a classroom with no air conditioning. There used to be a rule that if the temperature went above a certain level (which was well below 34) then everyone got sent home from school. The authorities stopped that. Which is a shame really because I can’t imagine that anyone learns anything when they are baking hot. I won’t go into what it will smell like in those classrooms full of pubescent boys. It’s bad enough on a cold day. I shall send the girls to school with a clothes peg each. (No, I’m joking, but it will be horrible!). My eldest daughter has to sit part of her Matura on Tuesday – so she’s spent the whole summer studying physics – it’s a bit mean really, particularly as she has the rest of the Matura next May/June , so won’t be having any sort of a break in the near future. Sometimes I think school systems – or at least the Swiss one – should just let some of these kids have a break!

Anyway, as always at the end of the holidays I’ve slowed almost to a halt….I did manage to do this over the last couple of days though…

Lozenges for the EEEEP EPP BEE….I need to make a second one of these over the next day or two and then I also need to send out all the little packages, because next month is my month 🙂

Once everyone heads to school it’s going to be nose to the grindstone – full speed ahead on the house and garden…oh joy I can’t wait (not!).

Helen

In between a whole lot of other things over the last couple of days I’ve been steadily quilting my zig-zag quilt. I actually intended to quilt the white part in white and the coloured parts in appropriate colours, but once I’d started with the white I realized that if I left the coloured zig-zag rows alone and only quilted the white parts, then it would make the colours stand out a lot more. I love how it’s turned out!

This isn’t a very big quilt – only 50″ x 63″ – so way smaller than what I normally make. I guess it would just about do for a single bed, or would make a nice lap quilt. The pattern is my own and just involved 15 billion half square triangles. The fabric is Happy Mochi Yum Yum. I just quilted in the ditch around the zig zags and then did a couple of straight-line zig zags in the centre of the white rows. All the little puffy up parts that I wasn’t happy with when I finished sewing it together all just miraculously disappeared!! The quilting was easy peasy really, but straight lines take much more concentration than stippling and I have the tense shoulders to prove it! I’m dead good at quilting in the ditch now though!

Now just the binding to do and that will be another one to cross off the list.

It’s a really happy quilt isn’t it!

Helen

So the Olympics are over….I actually feel rather sad, not to mention a bit exhausted after the exhilaration of last night’s closing ceremony. I can’t imagine how wiped out I’d be if I’d actually been there!

One thing I will say though is that if nothing else, in a time of economic doom and gloom and dire straights, the Olympics really did cheer up the whole British nation.

Well done Seb Coe and co.

You might enjoy this final little offering from Team GB. It certainly made me smile!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYtpL5YhWOQ

Helen

Just in time, my Olympic socks are finished.

Evelyn A. Clark’s Waving Lace Socks ( from Favorite Socks 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave – probably the best sock book ever), knitted in Madeline Tosh Sock in dried rose.

Time for something new 🙂

I’m about out-Olympiced too – I’m ready to have my life back and lose the square eyes!

Helen