Two things are going wrong in our household today.

First it's the Whale. He is always having constipation problems but it has now come to a head (or is that bottom?) as despite four Normacols in five days he hasn't 'been' for over a week.

Yesterday the nurse said "If this one doesn't do the trick you'll have to ring the doctor.", as she administered the fourth huge enema.

It didn't work so I rang the surgery and spoke to the doctor soon after 8 o'clock.

"Try giving three Microlax at once and ask him  to lie still and hold it as long as possible." she advised.

Of course, we didn't have any Microlax (a smaller kind of enema) in the house. It was raining 'like cow's pee' as they say here so once it turned nine I used the car to go to the chemists. I left a message on the nurse's mobile and gave Whale the box.

A few minutes later he called me:

"How do I take these?"

"They're not for swallowing. You stick'em up your bum."

"I can't do that!" he protested.

"No, it's OK. Vero's coming back".

Our Vero is a bit of a gloom merchant and she was adamant  that the doctor was wrong and it wouldn't work, but all the same she padded the bed with binliners and old towels - just in case.

Two hours later, he had eaten a good lunch but there was no sign of any action the other end so I phoned the surgery again.

The doctor came this time, prodded and pushed and finally used her finger. There was nothing in the lower bowel so the blockage must be higher.

She prescribed Colopeg - a drastic laxative used to prepare patients for a coloscopy.

"He must drink a litre as quickly as possible and, if I were you, I'd have a commode at the ready."

So, it was another trip to the chemist and a forage in the loft for the commode.

Now we wait. . . . . .

Problem number two is my computer.  Ever since the 'experts' tried to connect all three computers to wifi we've had problems. They left us yesterday with everything working fine, but within half an hour they all slowed down, and by this morning they had given up completely.

The lady expert came back on her own and fiddled around for ages before phoning the 'helpline'. She was getting more and more irritated and it seemed the chap on the other end had no idea what to do. He probably knew less than she did. It was probably a good half an hour at premium rate for nothing.

Then, suddenly, it seemed it was all systems 'go' again but she didn't know why. She just took advantage of the apparent remedy to have a coffee and disappear - but there was no charge and a promise that she'd come back if it went wrong again.

Sure enough. It went wrong, bigtime, the third time I used it. Not only did it claim to be offline, it now says it can't acquire an IP address.

Lady expert is coming back on Wednesday, bless her.

Meanwhile, I may or may not be out of action blogwise.