under another sun

A weird feeling as if I had pins and needles in my back in the middle of the night. I woke up and realised that rain was falling onto me through the Velux window. A call from Natwest Bank this morning, finalising the problem that had started in April. All good now I hope.  Fond farewells to the Creates bed and breakfast, with a big cooked breakfast this morning. Packing our millions of things, then Lorraine walked off to the long stay car park and drove the car to the short term carpark behind us. While I was waiting an old lady engaged me in quite a lengthy chat asking me if I had liked Monmouth. Also chatted to the owners of Creates, who are friendly. Car packed, we did a last bit of Monmouth shopping, and Lorraine nipped into he sewing shop to buy some bits, and happened happily on some bra extenders. Homeward bound then. Down the beautiful Wye Valley road, past Tintern Abbey and out to Chepstow and over the Severn Bridge, which is quite long and made Lorraine's stomach go over,...

A new week, a new positive attitude. Another text about a being going overdrawn and so on. Walked down to the physical branch of my bank, and spoke to a helpful person who made calls and returned home clutching a piece of paper with the name of the person who was dealing with my case and a number. These turned out to be illusions when I got home. The name I had been given was the name of the manager, as the case had not been even allocated yet, and after I received an email saying the case will take another 20 working days. This takes me in to July. When I find the energy, I initiate a complaint to the banking ombudsman.  I have been banging my head against a brick wall. Meanwhile the 123-reg email fiasco wears on, however I have given up with it. I have emails perhaps from a few days that I will never see. I can't bear to deal with those people one second more.  Stopped in at Mad Hatters and tried to buy a straw hat but was put off by what seemed to me an excessive price. The...

Phoned the 123-Reg helpline (wait for 37 minutes to speak to anyone) then I persuaded the helpline person to explain things methodically and after half an hour we were three steps from completion of my migration when the 123-reg site crashed. I wrote down in some detail what I had to do next. Later I returned to the 123-reg site, and completed the rest of the steps. But though everything says it is has been done successfully, no emails are arriving and the test emails I send just disappear. I received a highly confusing message which seemed to suggest there was a problem their end. Another day without the email I use for work, plus roughly three hours wasted on this problem alone.  Meanwhile logging onto my new business account, the £271 cheque claim against my account has disappeared but I got in the post an automatically generated letter telling me off for drawing on funds I did not have. However a new cheque has appeared trying to draw another £20 from my account. Nothing yet fr...

Thoroughly infuriating start to the week. Was automatically texted by NatWest, saying that I did not have enough funds to cover the payment I had made from my business account. I had made no payment of course, and there was another incident of a cheque this time of £270 being drawn on the account. I phoned up and after waiting enormous amounts of time got the security people to flag it up, I will be contacted about it later in the week. This again took well over an hour on the phone, with no immediate resolution.  Left feeling frustrated and angry, having also raised 'an official concern' with the bank. Meanwhile in the migration of my email to Microsoft 365 through 123-Reg is also farcically slow and difficult. Eventually got an message from their technical people, telling me about the next step. I did this successfully, but then no contact and nothing happened their end. As this means the email I use for my business is offline.  All this futile time wasting nonsense put me i...

Lorraine back to school with some trepidation, having had a very stressful Friday. I have offered to help her do some admin type stuff to just take a few small bits off her shoulders. I wish I could do more. I was up early and feeling rather inspired this morning. I spent the first few hours from 7:30 writing with gusto and enthusiasm, working on a few poems including the one I jotted down yesterday. Did some excellent work, even if I say so myself. Robin and I did some recording for the podcast this morning. Good to chat to her, and feeling positive about all of it.  After this, I started doing my books for the last financial year as part of folding up my business. Also received notification about  sole trading business account, but then had to complete a whole new load of forms as it does not appear with my other accounts on my internet banking. Really feeling the benefit of being with the same bank for 30 years. They are like blinking goldfish, with no memory of ever having...

Blue Monday The most miserable day of the year according to psychologists . As I rushed to get ready, the cat knocked over several things in my bathroom and then fell into the (thankfully just flushed) toilet. I felt cheery enough, although of course a rainy grey Monday morning in January, aboard a creepingly delayed train to Victoria didn't exactly get the pulses racing. Surgical site infections with Betsy and Hannah today was fine, however, and I like everyone I've met at that agency so far. Watched the share prices of banks plummeting today. My understanding of these things not great, but it contributes to a sense of instability and unease. Obama is inaugurated tomorrow, which seems to be a really hopeful thing. Curses! My desktop order has been thwarted. NatWest stopped my credit card payment to Dell as a precaution, as it was an Internet deal. So I have to reorder the bloody thing. Fairly fuming over this. Ordering a Dell computer isn't such a strange transaction is it...