BT and Bollocks

06/04/2005

Sitting in the office putting a little Saturday morning overtime as this week seems to have flown by in a welter of showers; rain, gales from every direction, flat calms, mud and midges. I have spent most of the days on the phone therefore have had neither the time or the inclination to be out apart from two solid tramps each day with the mutts, who do not seem to be enjoying the conditions either. A goodly portion of my telephone time seemed to be talking to the BT call centre in Bombay, or whatever it is called this week. BT is threatening to cut Glen Trollaigh off from the rest of the world because of unpaid charges relating to an abortive attempt to upgrade the verdigries copper wires snaking into the glen to ADSL. I spoke for some hours to a pleasant chap who called me “My Lord”. My name must have triggered some distant memory of Field Marshall Lord Trollaigh who spent most of his distinguished military career in that fetid sub-continent that is until some unfortunate report leaked out about a wholly innocent involvement training young boys and girls in healthy sporting activities. As a bachelor FMLT, as he was known in the family came under Victorian suspicion that a married man would have avoided, finally the old codger stupidly sailed away on an Arab Dhow with some of his protégées eastwards towards a more liberal Thailand and was never seen again. The Trollaighs have always followed a naval career from that day. Back in the glen, one light on the horizon has been that dearest Dottie’s sacred lawn appears to be making a miraculous re-growth. Lachie is only waiting for a reasonable dry spell before taking the old cylinder Ransomes gingerly over it at high setting, he has made a splendid job of fettling up the old girl who’s Briggs and Stratton fired on the first pull after five years of standing having been replaced by a triple gang ride-on. Talk of miracles reminds me of my great great aunt The Blessed Mary Trollaigh, but I leave that for another day. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.