I dont know if anyone has had quite the same problem I have had, but I will explain. On the weekend simultaneously my web host had a problem with one of their licenses that happened to be on the server my site was on. This site also happened to contain my emails. This gave me no access to anything on the site including ftp or ssh access until the license registration was renewed. The joys of using a proprietary website management software. I reported a ticket and waited. I was happy with the response time. By Monday of the long weekend I was still unable to access to my site or email. So I got a few people to check my site. They were able to access and the web host verified that my site was up and running. Ok I thought maybe my ISP was a little behind so I waited a couple more hours.
Later in the evening I tried to retrieve my emails; still no luck. This time I contacted my ISP who put the problem back on the web host. So I contact them again and they said ‘we can access all of your services and account via ftp and other means’. So today I called my ISP back and this time I got someone with some decent access to the server. They said they flushed out the datastream (jargon) for my account an now I can access (I think this was code for we reset your account). I got my wife to check and everything was now working and emails retrieved.
Out of all this I can understand why the website and hosting went down but as to why the connection to any domain on the server I am hosted on has left me puzzled and guessing. I spoke to friends who are with the same ISP and state they have had what appears to be a block accessing their hotmail accounts.
Well I guess I will never know the true story and am glad to have access back to my emails.
Thanks to all those who helped troubleshoot this with me. You know who you are. Now back to living life again and solving other peoples problems instead of mine.