The saga with Orange goes on. Having suffered several periods when we couldn't get online for days on end we decided we had to switch providers. We did so with trepidation, knowing that it just couldn't be straightforward.

It wasn't.

Orange took weeks to send an e-mail telling us what our migration code was. We gave it to BT, received our BT boradband kit and waited for the great day when we could finally switch. Except we couldn't.

BT said Orange's migration code was wrong. We'd have to get another one from orange. Also, Orange hadn't cleared the line. Orange said they couldn't give a new code, and in any case their migration codes don't work with BT.

BT wasn't keen to comment on that, but insisted that Orange must clear the line.

Orange said BT had to send someone to the exchange to do that manually. BT listened in silence.

And then, with no BT service in operation, Orange cut us off.

So now we have no ISP, hence a month of no posts from me.

Who does the humble consumer believe in all this?

We've been back to Orange, who now say they'll clear the line in 10 days. BT say that even though Orange has cut us off they can't do anything to help.

When I ask again they say, well, we can send a disk that will give you a narrow band connecion. The disk, when it comes, seems to be for renewing broadband drivers. I load it but can't begin to understand the instructions it gives me.

BT say we could also complain to Ofcom. Easier said than done. Ofcom give you a sort of diagnostic Q and A and then tell you to ring BT wholesale. But BT has already said it can't help for another 10 days.

So, we ought to have our line cleared on January 3, and we might get connected to BT five days from then.

Meantime, no ISP, no help and no idea who is telling the truth. And yet, I am online. I've done it by finding a wireless broadband service that covers my area. I've no idea whose it is, or whether I'm breaking every online law in using it. But it works.

Could this be the future - will we one day have no need of Orange, BT and all the other useless providers of no service whatsoever?

That would be nice. And cheaper.

What a scandal: sacks of chestnuts put out with the rubbish in a suburban street.

My kids were horrified when I picked one out of a bin-liner, pushed back its spiky green jacket with gloved hands, then bit and peeled its glossy brown skin to get at the white crunchy flesh - like a nutty Wensleydale, deliciously cold, bitter and milky

I couldn’t rescue them all, but I did stuff my pockets. I mean, does nobody around here know that this is a waste of very good food?

I once read A place in Italy by Eric Newby, in which he buys a farm surrounded by chestnut woods and that still has a chestnut-roasting outhouse. Dried, they make a flour - for pasta and gnocchi - that in poorer times was the staple diet in the area.

I had more modest goals for my rescued harvest: a chestnut terrine and a chestnut pasta sauce with ham and cheese, from recipes in a book that had been sitting on the shelf just waiting for the raw ingredients to become available.*

First, cook your chestnuts. I chose to boil rather than roast them, which involved cutting them in half and popping in bubbling water for 15 minutes. Then you have to take them out of their skins. Use a spoon, says the book. That doesn’t work. Some crumble, others leave half their flesh behind. So I start peeling with my thumbnail. Pop them in ice water, says the book, then the bitter, brown inner-skin will come off. Yeah, easier said than done.

And quite a lot are bad. It takes me about an hour to go from 2kg of nuts in shells to 600g of cooked flesh ready for liquidising. I add some of the cooking water, which is chestnut-brown like something you’d use to paint the shed. Slowly the dry mess turns into a slick puree. I add it to onions and finely sliced mushrooms fried earlier; then spoon the mixture into a loaf tin. After chilling in the fridge I turn it over and out pops a perfect brick of terrine. It’s delicious: moist, creamy, earthy and nutty.

I save some of the chestnuts until later in the week, for the pasta sauce. It is divine. To a base of fried diced onions you add the quartered chestnuts plus chopped ham, yoghurt, parsley and grated cheese.

Every so often I day-dream about the house-with-land that we’ll move to one day. It has a growing list of essentials: a mulberry tree, a quince; room for a modest orchard of apple, pear, plum and cherry. But now I find there is another absolute must-have: a chestnut wood.

*On Chestnuts by Ria Loobhuizen (Prospect Books)