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Socks: Mouseworks Dynamic Cardboard Redesign and Basic Tunneling

Mom: I've been battling the heat today with ice bottles and chill pods on rotation. Windows open, windows closed, fan on, fan off. I'm looking forward to Autumn 😄
Socks: Thanks Mom, your a good 'un ❤️
Gin gins: Thank you Mom ❤️❤️
 
Mom is off to the vet with Polo the gin gin this pm. His breathing is noisy. He might need antibiotics 😟
 
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I hope Polo is ok. Maybe the heat has affected him? But yes it might be a respiratory infection.
 
Thanks Maz, his breathing thing comes and goes. He seems perky though. The taxi ride was good and we are in an air conditioned waiting area, so OK so far. I'll let you know the outcome. 🤞
 
Polo was seen by a great vet and a super vet student who gave him a very thorough examination including looking at his back teeth and checking his respiratory system and feeling for internal issues. He seems healthy 👍 but the vet did say he is "chunky" 😄❤️ and recommended cutting down his pellets as he may have a sort of apnoea. He got three days' Metacam as an anti inflammatory. Of course, all croaky sounds had ceased completely but I am very relieved that his chest and respiratory system sound clear and healthy. The taxi ride there was great, nice and quiet and comfortable. After lots of air con in the vet's we made a dash for the tube and our homeward journey was a good one. Polo had an admirer in a little girl who came up to say hello who had a picture of a bunny on her T shirt and was very pleased with Polo. The heat has been scary and I am hoping it will cool down dramatically tomorrow. The vet said we could do imaging if necessary but I'm hoping that this noise will stay away. It doesn't seem to be an infection which is a relief 👍
 
Aw glad Polo saw a great vet. A little chunky :ROFLMAO: . Well there's no major harm in that maybe - at least if he ever loses weight he has some reserves! Glad it's settled a bit and I hope the Metacam helps.

It's been a bit less hot here today but we're in the north.
 
Glad Polo is ok. The heat still isn’t as bad as the summer a few years ago when it hit 40 degrees…now that was BAAAAD!
I remember that well. I walked home slowly as I didn't want to take public transport. I put a wet scarf on my head and stopped now and then to pour more ice water onto it. It was a very strange feeling to be in air warmer than yourself.
 
It must indeed be a strange feeling. What time of day was that? In Spain (@dwarfhamstermom will have better details!) people used to stay indoors between 12 and 4pm - ie the hottest part of the day.
 
I have asthma and my breathing was awful that summer. I was especially affected by incredibly high pollution levels.
I know what you mean. I have asthma too and was affected a bit in the recent spell when it became humid - no air to breathe. As long as it's dry heat I'm usually ok.
 
We didn't get to the playpen last night. Mom was tired after trying to find an (affordable) alternative connection to broadband, it's been gone a day now. She's thinking of a mifi. She never had broadband in the past and lived quite happily without it. When you really need it, it disappears. Something else would be great, it's expensive and vulgarly over-hyped.
 
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Oh I'm sorry you're having wifi problems - it can be a nightmare. We actually had mifi here when we first moved here, because there was no broadband! It's a little router (there are big ones and some as small as a smartphone) that take a sim card which is data only so gives you mobile broadband via wifi. It worked very well but it was an expensive option for us, compared to regular broadband at the time. Not good for gamers as there is a higher "ping" rate with mobile broadband, but I assume that wouldn't bother you! Once we did get broadband available, we had plusnet for a while, until it started being unreliable, so then we switched to Vodafone broadband (not mobile - just general broadband). The speeds were no different but it was slightly more reliable and really quite inexpensive. I think we paid £20 a month for both phone line and broadband, haggled a bit and got the phone line to include all calls and all mobile calls. So basically we never paid more than £20 a month. Over the years it went up a bit and I think latterly was £26 a month,

However, where we are, broadband was STILL incredibly slow (being rural) - we only got about 3 or 4mb per second! Which was ok for us, it worked, but not for the teenager who liked to play games on computer. Eventually we switched to Starlink - which is brilliant but unfortunately really expensive! It works great for us (via satellite dish) and great speeds, but that's because we're rural - open skies. I don't think it would work as well in a city due to a) obstructions (tall buildings) and b) other people with Starlink using your bandwidth. However some people do use it in cities - on a very tall pole attached to the roof! But I wouldn't recommend it if you have alternatives as there are set up costs as well! Buying the dish, installing it etc.

Maybe have a local at Vodafone broadband though. Now it may have been a bit cheaper because we had vodafone for our mobiles as well - I'm not sure - or it may have been a standard price - but it was certainly the cheapest one I found.

The main downside with Mifi is, if your mobile broadband goes down you have no alternative. Whereas here, if our main broadband goes down, you can use your phone as a mobile broadband hotspot (similar to mifi but not quite as fast as a mifi router), but it works!

We had a relative who was living somewhere temporarily and didn't want broadband running in and they had an ipad that had a sim slot and just got a data sim for the ipad and used that as a mifi router basically! ie used the ipad as a hotspot.
 
Starlink must be broadband heaven, if you live in the country. I'll look at Vodafone, it could be better than the company I'm using, or at least less costly and pretentious. It's interesting how people have to move around to get decent service. I tried to use my mobile as a hotspot but it wouldn't connect to my computer ☹️ sadly. I'd like to try Mifi if I can get one that is easy to connect to.
 
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This was the original little mifi unit we had. We got it because it was portable! So we could take it out with us, because at the time, stepson didn't have a phone - he just had an ipod touch (which was like an iphone but no phone or signal) so he could track down pokemon while we were out and about! But it also worked fine in the house. Obviously the signal was stronger in the room where the mifi unit was but you could move it from room to room.

TP Link mifi unit - Amazon (affiliate link)

We then just took out a data only sim contract with a phone provider. I think the reason our data sim contract was expensive, was because I had it on a month by month basis. I didn't want to take out a whole year's contract in case it didn't work so well. But you basically have no one to deal with that way - you're more in control, which was quite nice. Although mobile broadband speeds can vary as well.

Later, we tried a proper big mifi router (looks like a normal wifi router), which was really expensive! Just to try and get better speeds and coverage. It was slightly better but we ended up returning it as it still had a high ping rate for the teenager! To be honest I found the little one with a data sim was perfectly fine! It's basically the same as using your phone as a hotspot, but the difference is it is actually a little wifi router so no need to connect to a phone - just connect to the wifi.

I think some mobile phone companies actually do a deal that includes a mifi router. We didn't do that as it meant having a longer contract. And also I did a bit of research and the TP link one was supposed to be better (or the same) as some of the ones they supply.
 
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So for example now, a data sim with Vodafone on a month by month basis is £37 a month (unlimited data). For a two year contract it's £30 a month. It's not cheap. I just preferred having month by month so I could cancel it if we started having any problems (or in case real broadband became available!).

On the two year contract there is a cheaper option of £18 a month but then you're limited to 25gb data. I think we had a limit of 25gb a month and it was just about enough but I was constantly worrying and checking it to make sure we didn't go over the limit!


I don't have shares in Vodafone by the way! I've used it for years though and never had any issues and always found them good to deal with (on the mobile side anyway). The customer services seems to be better than most. We have used Ee before as well but didn't find them as good to deal with.

You have an ipad don't you? Is it one that takes a sim card? If it is then you don't need a mifi router - just put the data sim in the ipad and use it as a router (you can still use it as an ipad!). The speeds from an ipad will be more limited than from a mini router, but not a lot different.
 
Oh and I forgot. The little portable mifi unit runs on rechargeable battery. But you can leave it plugged in all the time if using it at home :) Or they do a less portable one that looks like a normal router for about the same price - although this one is only 4G. A 5G one is a lot more expensive (but probably not necessary? We don't get 5G here!).

Standard mifi router
 
Hmm, lots of options. Like you, I didn't like bring tied to a contract in case the service was no good. Just using my giff gaff data allowance was enough. But connecting my work laptop via WiFi won't work through my mobile phone unfortunately. I got it to try and put the code in, but it wouldn't budge. The little Mifi unit is nice. Do you remember dial up? I used that long ago while waiting for a broadband account with BT to work. It took ages, a whole month, to get online and dial up saved me.
 
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