This post was originally a footnote to the last, but it grew.
The new EE SIM card arrived as promised, just after midday today. Hurrah!
I winkled out the card tray, and inserted it into my phone. It looked good next to the microSD card. I rather liked EE's logo.
With the card tray pressed back into Prudence, she sprang into life again.
The lock screen now showed 'EE' as the mobile phone service provider in the top left corner of the screen, and not 'BT' any longer. Hurrah!
I tethered the laptop to my phone - and lo! - I got connected at once to the Internet. I tried a few favourite websites. No issues whatever. I'd be able to make full use of my massive new data allowance. HURRAH!
So far, so good. I'd had a great welcome from EE, as if they were genuinely chuffed and honoured to have me on board. And I was definitely able to use my phone in all respects, at least with the temporary phone number they'd given me. But now I needed to transfer my usual phone number over to EE, using the PAC code that BT Mobile had texted. That might not go so well.
The procedure itself was straightforward. I just had to complete a simple online form that wanted only three details: my new EE phone number, my old phone number, and that PAC code.
But EE didn't like the PAC code. Hmmm...
Should I enquire with BT, or start a chat with EE?
I'd mentally finished with BT. I would try the chat. After a few exchanges, I gathered that the phone number transfer I'd been trying to make was already in hand, and should be complete by the end of the next day at the very latest. Really? Had Ryan (the person at BT Mobile I'd spoken to on the day before) done all the heavy lifting for me already? It looked as if he might have!
Well, we'll see. It's Wednesday afternoon. If the EE chat assistant was correct, by the end of tomorrow, Thursday, people should be able to call or text me on my proper number.
Let it be true!
Fingers still crossed tightly...
In case you were wondering, the picture on my lock screen was cropped from one I took in October 2004, at Sheffield Park Gardens, a National Trust property not far from where I live. This was the slightly-darker original shot.
The camera used to take this with was my first digital camera, the Nikon Coolpix 990, bought in May 2000. It was a distinctive-looking beastie:
It ran on AA-sized batteries, which you extracted (at frequent intervals) for recharging - they didn't last long. But I liked using it, and it took very nice photos. But by 2005 its 3.4 megapixels were insufficient, and I'd jumped to 5 megapixels instead on the first of my Panasonics. The 990 did however recommend the Nikon brand to me, and in 2008 I bought the full-frame Nikon D700, a semi-professional DSLR, which as you can see gave me great joy:
And no wonder - it was a superb piece of kit, and the lenses I had for it gave wonderful results. But it was bulky and heavy. I bought the little Leica D-Lux 4 in 2009, to give myself a small and light alternative for casual shooting. Inevitably, the little Leica quickly became my favourite camera, and the D700 was rendered practically redundant - and I simultaneously abandoned my half-formed ambition to go semi-pro.
I eventually sold the D700 - and its lenses - in June 2011, to raise much-needed cash to pay the humungous Council Tax on the empty Cottage during the forthcoming winter. 2011 was a very low point in my finances. Running two houses - the one I still live in (inherited from Mum and Dad), and the Cottage in Piddinghoe (bought earlier as an investment) - was ruining me fast. I survived because the Cottage itself sold in August 2011, after being offered for sale in an auction. Just in time to keep me from certain bankruptcy. It was a close thing.
Well, that was some digression! Back to my SIM saga. And the news (first thing on Thursday 29th April) is that BT have emailed to say my regular phone number has been passed to EE. I am now awaiting a message from EE, due sometime today, to say that it has replaced the temporary number they gave me.
So there should be yet another hurrah! by the end of the day.
One minor fly is however thrashing about in the ointment. The deal is for 160GB. So far EE have been showing only 80GB on the 'My EE' part of their website. I shouldn't get worried about this - Ryan at BT Mobile warned me that 80GB would appear at first, but it would soon be corrected to 160GB. (It was in fact a short-lived 'double-data' deal for new EE customers) But elsewhere on 'My EE' a strange amount of 120GB has started to appear! Very puzzling.
But never mind about that - at 9.00am (half an hour ago) the number porting was complete, and texts began to roll in on my regular mobile phone number, but of course via EE. So job done.
HURRAH!
