Yesterday afternoon three hours of our time was consumed with the presence of an affable young technician courtesy of Bell Canada. The young man, with a 1000-watt smile, the kindly attention of a Victorian nursemaid and the enthusiasm of a high-wire circus performer really knew what he was about. He was spending so much time with us for several reasons.

Reason number one, my husband decided after four years without television, to look into getting a package deal from Bell. And the reason for that is we were informed by another Bell technician who had much earlier done work on our connection that the speed of our Internet service was compromised by being routed indirectly for the simple reason that we didn't have a complete package, including television reception.

Reason number two was that we finally broke to the realization that though we have wi-fi, the speed leaves much to be desired and so does the connectivity; we were at the second-to-lowest rung, and we were being offered the second-top speed with a package put together for us that included our land line, upgraded long-distance and a few other add-ons. At a cost that closely rivalled what we were already paying for much less.

So this lovely young man who would make any woman proud to be able to introduce as her son, set us up. Technically he did all the work that was required that he crowed was a "breeze", since he was a qualified technician, had attended technical college to attain that degree. He was a farmboy from the Gaspe region of Quebec, from one of a handful of United Empire Loyalist families who happened to settle there a century-and-a-half ago.

Reason he stuck around so long was that he needed to rack up the time, to begin with. And he was also tasked to 'teach' us how to use the hand-held controls to make full use of all the various channels and tricks and treats now at our disposal. The cherry on this particular sundae (and it was a Sunday, part of his regular week's operating hours) treat was that we would be paying a total of $5 more than we were without super hi-fi sped up, and without television reception.

Because, he explained, it was costlier for Bell to maintain the old dial-up service including the enhanced low-grade  hi-fi, which they kept going, even to buying new equipment for the service, because people didn't want to commit to upgrades, mostly among the older contingent, famously resistant to change; and cheaper for them to provide the kind of upgraded service we had just switched to. That was on Sunday.

On Monday we enjoyed our new speeded-up Internet service. And then on Tuesday, I decided I'd give Windows 10 update I kept being nagged about, another try. I've attempted in the past to authorize its download and it was never completed. So I began again this morning, authorizing the change, because that lovely technician said the browser that comes with it is the best ever. Result? My computer was locked up for hours while the processing went on. Hours later, still processing. And then in mid-process, the electricity went off. So the process was aborted.

Why did we have a failure of power? Heaven knows. My husband happened to be out at a building supply centre nearby when the power failed. Good thing he always has cash on him when he went in to get kibble at a pet supply shop for Jack and Jill, since their computers were down. As for me, when the electricity went off, I went out with the puppies and began working on the gardens, which rain earlier in the day kept me from. I kept hearing sirens.

When my husband returned finally, he was late because all the traffic lights were out and proceeding was delayed. And fire engines kept flying by on the highway.                      

We will no doubt tomorrow discover what, once again, interfered with our electrical power.