I'd planned to blog today about autumn and the changes it brings to a Bulgarian household. Some of the wonderful sights and usually quite mild weather. I may even have included a few photos of the garden and scenery, but no, I'm sorry I've changed my mind and am gonna have a rant instead!
Don't get me wrong, I've not had a bad day at all. In fact it's been an ok day. The rain stopped, all the animals enjoyed their time outside, the kids helped with feeding etc and I even had an online chat to hubby. But tonight the internet is driving me mad! Unfortunately living in a rural Bulgarian village has it's downsides at times. We're 22km's from the closest town and surrounded by fields and hills. It's quite olde worlde where we live which also means that unfortunately technolgy here just hasn't quite caught up with the rest of the modern world.
In all the cities and towns internet speed is very good, wi-fi is offered in a lot of places and life goes on at a rather hurried pace. Here things are slightly different. Our internet currently runs at less than dial-up speed and that's on a good day. We're limited on options as to how we connect to the internet and have to use a dongle which to be frank is absolutely pants! We curently use a M-tel homebox which is supposed to supply our internet and home phone service via wireless and works very much like a mobile phone. Of course that is when it wants to work - the internet is usually ok (apart from being slow) but does get affected by the weather, the phone part rarely works and people get tired of trying to ring us and to be honest I understand why. We also have pre-paid mobile phones with the same company and they work great if you want to stand in the middle of the field with one leg in the air, shouting like a lunatic because the person calling can't hear you and freezing your backside off in the colder months...........grrrrrrrrr. Maybe it's time for a change I can hear you all saying, but the truth is we haven't found anything else that works for the kind of money we have to spare (not a lot).
Well that's my rant over for today. Hopefully the god's of internet will allow me to post this quickly then I can drag myself off to bed with a book. Night night x
I really feel for you. Internet is our business - but its also my link with the world - news I can understand, friends, family etc.
ReplyDeleteWhen we looked at buying in BG internet was one of the major problems. We MUST have broadband....but also wanted to live near VT, in a small village, have decent road and public transport, and have a house ready for 8 people to move into :-D Estate agents were horrified - lol.
We managed to find all of that, but i didn't get the piece of land with outbuildings so we could have animals, i didn't get a traditional house; but I think you need a LOT of money to get everything :-)
You got the land you need for your lifestyle.....and I got the internet we need to work BUT is it too much to ask that I can get a bit of the 'empty land' just over my wall....or that Telnet put wifi in your village?? :-)