How do I investigate and solve Pages, Notes, Mail intermittent 'offline' and failure to synchronise problems with Mountain Lion after waking from Sleep

When I wake up my iMac after sleep, i get a variety of intermittent - but mostly FREQUENT and FRUSTRATING problems including:

1. Notes app is offline - as stated by a message in the window bar. If I close Notes and reopen, the app appears to be online. However, Notes does NOT update with items I know are on my iPad or in the web iCloud. Furthermore, if I create a new note on my iMac, the new Note does not upload to iCloud. This is IRRITATING!
2. Pages and Numbers - similar situation. I can edit a Pages or Numbers document on my iMac (stored on the iCloud). But then the Pages doc doesn't ALWAYS get uploaded to the iCloud. Then I end up with conflicted versions of the file in the cloud, my iPad, and the two iMacs I use. Then I get CONFUSED and FRUSTRATED. For example, consider these steps:
   • Open Pages on my iMac, edit an iCloud file, then save and close file
   • Pages/File/Open/iCloud - I note in the iCloud file list the edited file has a little 'cloud' icon against its name. From experience this warns me of TROUBLE - namely that the file has NOT yet been uploaded to the iCloud. However, I just checked the new Beta iCloud on the web, and to my surprise, the file edited on my iMac is apparently in the icloud. But now, I edit the iCloud version, and the changes DO NOT appear on my iMac pages version. OK I realise its in Beta version...
   • So now, I open my iPad, open Pages. I note the iCloud version of my edited document updates to my iPad, as indicated by a blue download line. 'It just works' as Steve Jobs claimed at Apple Developers Conference a couple of years back. Again, the edited version form my iPad is now 'up in the cloud' correctly....
   • Oh - and now mysteriously the Pages version on my Imac has become synchronised with my iPad/iCloud version! Luck ... but that's about all I can say. It doesn't always happen. I'm LUCKY today.
3. Meanwhile, the Note I created on my iMac (Item 1 above) has still not yet appeared on my iPad or iCloud... even though I HOPE it would be given that Pages on my iMac, iPad and iCloud are chatting nicely now! The Note says it's in my iCloud - but NOT. Similarly, notes updated or added on my iPad, which appear in iCloud, are NOT on my iMac.
4. Mail - last but NOT LEAST! and MOST INFURIATING!!! My Gmail, Vodafone NZ and Orcon accounts (in Mail) are all active and receiving after the night's sleep. However, my iCloud mail account has the dreaded ⚠ offline.
   • The message on Mail is "There may be a problem with the mail server or network. Verify the settings for account “ICloud - peter.me@me.com” or try again. The server returned the error: The server “p03-imap.mail.me.com” cannot be contacted on port 993." Despite the message, mail was received this morning at 8:59 am ... some time before I woke-up my computer (a late start this morning).
   • If I sent an email FROM my .me iCloud account TO my Vodafone account, the message whooshes away, it's in my SENT box. But it doesn't get delivered to my Vodafone account on my iMac Mail, or anywhere else, Despite the message being listed in my 'Sent' mailbox!!!
   • In contrast, a message sent from my Gmail account to my Vodafone account (in Mail) gets sent and received almost instantly on my iMac and iPad.

All of the above mishaps are extremely frustrating, as I rush off from working on my iMac at home, get to my iMac at work and find documents I have been updating on my home iMac not available correctly on my work iMac ... or even my iPad. I expect these things from Apple to 'just work'. Furthermore, emails I THINK I have sent (as indicated by them appearing in the Sent folder on my home iMac) ... have not actually been despatched.

Frankly, I can no longer rely or recommend the Apple iCloud stuff, so I am converting more and more to relying on DropBox and Google.

These problems only became apparent since I updated to one of the Mountain Lion versions... I can't say when.

Oh - if I shutdown and restart the computer my Mail works OK. Guess what, I don't want to do that each time I want to use Mail!

Technicals:

My iMac is connected by Ethernet cable to my Apple TimeCapsule. The TimeCapsule is connected by Ethernet cable to my Orcon Genius Modem.

Obviously, my internet connection is A-OK, as I am able to use Firefox to make this posting!

Mountain Lion 10.8.4

iMac 27 inch, mid 2010, Intel Core i5 16 Gb