The last time I changed broadband suppliers was nearly 4 years ago and as I recall I was without any service for at least 24 hours. 10 days ago I made the decision to go for a new, superfast, 24MB connection from www.bethere.co.uk They are an LLU provider which means they have their own equipment in the BT exchange; non LLU suppliers are simply reselling BT supplied broadband. BT has no faster broadband than 8MB. So, not only was I changing providers I was also being removed from the BT equipment and connected to the private equipment in the exchange, I therefore expected delays and maybe problems.

Yesterday was the day it was scheduled to happen and by 7:30pm I was still connected to my old provider. I called bethere and they said it was scheduled for that day and it could happen anytime before 9:00pm, so I continued to browse the web and listen to streamed music. Then suddenly the music stopped and the web didn’t work! I went into my router settings and changed them to those supplied by bethere and clicked save. Within a couple of minutes a connection was reported, the music came back on and the web woke up!

This morning I decided to see how it long it would take to download a 750MB length film, something I’ve always set for overnight in the past. Went and had breakfast and a shower and returned to the PC after 90 minutes – it had already finished! Quite how long it took I don’t know except to say it was less than 90 minutes.

bethere provide a ‘free’ wireless router but I didn’t want it, I tried to negotiate something else in its place but with no success. My existing wireless router is a Fritz!Box and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. The bethere router is a Speedtouch 780, full details here http://tinyurl.com/22vagv I may be open to offers for this brand new, unused, wireless router with two voip ports.

Did two feeder runs today. The feeder bus starts at Portsmouth and then goes to Southampton before meeting another Megabus, coming up from Bournemouth, at Winchester. Here the passengers are consolidated onto one bus. This works fine on the ‘up to London’ routes but not quite so well on the way back. When the bus from London arrives at Winchester all passengers for Southampton and Portsmouth should get off the bus they are on and transfer to the feeder bus. The ‘London’ bus then continues to Bournemouth with those passengers going there. No matter how often you tell passengers boarding in London with Southampton/Portsmouth tickets that they must change in Winchester, then make a full announcement about what to do after arrival in Winchester, then do a final check by saying “You should only be on this bus if you’re going to Bournemouth, OK?” we still get people reaching the last stop in Bournemouth and then asking when will they get to Southampton/Portsmouth!!!

My first Megabus drive was from Winchester to London leaving at 07:10, traffic on the motorway was, as always at this time, pretty busy but I managed to keep on time as far as Hogarth roundabout. Then, after crossing the Hammersmith flyover, a decision has to be made; go down Earls Court and then along the Embankment, or straight ahead through Knightsbridge to Victoria. Usually I get a gut feeling about which will be best but today nothing. Oh well, lets take Earls Court. And then I crawled all the way to Victoria getting in about 15 minutes late.

Took a 45 minute break and then drove London to Brighton. This was the best trip of the day because no one wanted the Sussex University stop at Falmer so I could stay on the A23 and go straight into Brighton. The result of this was an arrival 35 minutes early! However, this windfall was soon whittled away. An extended family were on the bus and as soon as I pulled up at the Coach station in Brighton they began using the toilet on the coach! Each took about 3 minutes in there and after 4 of them had used up 12 minutes of what I now considered my time I politely suggested they seek alternative facilities because I’d like to go for my lunch!

The return to London deaprture time is 13:40 but a small group were hovering at the front of the bus well before then. I started to load at about 13:25 and those who were already there were on and seated by 13:30 so I just sat in my seat observing all around :-) There were a couple of young men chatting and smoking near the front of the bus, a girl passed who they seemed to know so a chat ensued. At 13:40 I had my finger on the door close button when the young guys made a move onto the bus. They stood in front of me and said “We’ve got a problem we can’t find our ticket/reference numbers”. I nearly exploded (but didn’t) they wait until 2 seconds before departure time having been at the bus at least 10 minutes before departure! My words to them were “I’m sorry, normally I’d call our control office for you and get the ticket numbers tracked. This would take around 5 minutes to sort. But you’ve stood in front of the bus until 2 seconds before it’s due to leave and now tell me. That’s just not being fair on all the passengers who’ve already boarded and expect to leave on time. If you told me about the problem earlier I’d have sorted it for you but now it’s too late to do that”. They got off the bus mumbling about me being a miserable old fart!

The route back to London is up the M23, join the M25 clockwise at Jct 8 go to Jct 10 and then join the A3 to get into London. As I got near the M25 the matrix signs stated saying ‘Long delays on M25 Jct 7-9’ and then the traffic stated to queue on the M23 slip road the M25. So route ‘B’ it had to be; cross the M25 staying on the M23 and then continue when it becomes the A23. It means you have to go through about 16 miles of dense conurbation starting with Croydon and ending with Brixton and Stockwell before you cross the Thames. These 16 miles took 1 hour 30 minutes.

I still had to do the London back to Winchester trip. Again the traffic was grim and I arrived 25 minutes late in Winchester.

We’ve had a great week eating, drinking and exploring a little bit of Belgium, Holland and France. We took the Norfolk Line ferry from Dover to Dunquerque. This was my first crossing with Norfolk Line having first used Towsend Thoresen Ferries, then European Ferries and finally P&O spanning 35 years! Norfolk Line are really impressive, very spacious modern ships much better than Sea France, P&O etc.

Photos from the trip are on my wife’s website at www.essy.loades.net

Our first day and night was spent in Bruges. As always it was full of tourists but never the less still worth spending a little time there wandering around. Then it was up to Eindhoven in the Netherlands where I needed to visit someone. We only stayed one night before heading south again and into France. Our first night’s stop was in Tourcoing which is joined onto Lille. I’ve been to Lille many times but never into Tourcoing …… what a great place. A great place that is if you like industrial archeology. Tourcoing was the centre of the weaving industry in France, think of it as a French Bradford! The old mills are huge and still remain, best of all there does not appear to have been a Monsieur Fred Dibnah so all the chimneys still stand! The mills are being sympathetically turned into apartments etc. I’d love to live there. Most of the town appears to have been built in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s with many buildings showing art noveau design in them.

Inland here it was very hot, around 27C, so we then moved to the coast staying in Boulogne sur Mer. Still warm as you will see in the pictures showing how busy the beach was. Here we ate very well in the only restaurant in Boulogne to hold a Michelin star, La Matelote. The pink candy floss came with the petit fours and coffee. Our last day and night were spent in Wimereux which is only a couple of miles up the coast. We moved hotels because we wanted to eat in the Michelin starred restaurant in Wimereux (Epicure) and not have to drive back into Boulogne. Had a another excellent feed! The next day we came home arriving around 8:00pm with me back to work the following morning – I did a London trip.