A popular Northumberland wedding venue has finally had its access to the world wide web restored - seven weeks after it was lost during Storm Arwen.
The team at Brinkburn in Coquetdale have been forced to move offices following the storm in November, with work made impossible by the lack of internet connection.
A number of other households in the area have also been without connection since the storm hit.
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Brinkburn, which is also home to a number of holiday cottages, is operated by husband and wife team Mark and Emma Fenwick, who opened up the business in 2011.
Mark explained the significant impact the issue had on the business.
He said: "It's not just me, but the difference is the issues that I've had as a business. We had to move offices, we've had to move to a different village.
"People who come on holiday, if they want to have a digital detox they would like to it voluntarily. They don't want it to be compulsory.
"We had people coming a few days before Christmas who were still working so needed access to computers and emails, and they had to go and leave and find other places because there wasn't internet access.
"We had others who wanted to give their children digital presents for Christmas and wanted them to be able to use them, and we weren't able to offer that. People were frustrated.
"We had people who cancelled because they just couldn't face it.
"Internet is really important. All of our computers are cloud based, we couldn't even run reception. Our booking software is also online.
"For domestic users the experience is 'I can't get Netflix or social media' but for a business it's much more fundamental."
The issue came at a particularly difficult time for Mark and his industry as a whole following the Covid-19 pandemic.
He added: "What was most frustrating was as a hospitality business and a wedding business we've been fighting to get some sort of momentum post-Covid.
"It seemed so unfair that the momentum we though we might be able to build up was stopped by this."
Mark was also frustrated by the amount of time it took to fix the problem and a lack of communication from network operator Openreach and his supplier, BT.
He continued: "I've never found out from Openreach how many people are still off, so that is a big frustration.
"We did lose electricity, but there are vulnerable people living near us so we insisted we get a generator and were connected quickly.
"The amount of work that had to be done to connect us compared to the work BT and Openreach had to do, the electricity company had to do so much more."
While Northern Powergrid have paid out compensation to those affected by power cuts, internet providers have no such agreements, meaning those who were impacted by a loss of internet will have to negotiate with their suppliers.
In a statement, Openreach apologised for the disruption - but did not confirm whether there were still customers left without internet.
A spokeswoman said: "We’re very sorry for the length of time taken to get broadband and phone services back up and running and we understand how frustrating that must have been. The storm damage along the stretch of cable was severe and located in several different locations requiring multiple repairs in stages along the route.
“Work included stabilising multiple telegraph poles and renewing overhead cable lengths. Engineers did manage to get a temporary service to the majority of premises in the vicinity but sadly it wasn’t possible to get it to every single property despite best efforts.
“The level of damage caused by Storm Arwen was unprecedented in recent memory and our engineers have been working flat out to complete repairs in the aftermath.”
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