Come The Revolution...

... our local council, my bank (but less so) and the w***ers at TV Licensing will be first against the wall!

Okay, starting the saga with the bank... I checked my online banking today, and it said there was a charge for an "unpaid item" at £19.50. Now, I knew nothing about any items unpaid, so I phoned them to ask what it was. They told me "It's your TV licence... they tried to take a payment yesterday, and there wasn't enough money in the account, cause you only got your wages in today."

So this leads me on to my rant against TV licensing... I set up to make payments by direct debit, and I had to make 4 payments of something like £30-odd, starting in January and ending this month... and then from next month it would be regular payments of £11-odd every month.

For the last 3 months, the payments have come out on the 2nd of every month. But I've been April Fooled... because this month they decided they would try to take it on the first!

So I went home at lunchtime and tried to phone TV Licensing to see if I could make a card payment so that I would clear the unpaid payment, and I would know that the money had come off my account. But, oh no... because their system hasn't actually been told that the payment wasn't collected yet, they can't take a card payment... so I have to phone back on Monday or Tuesday once they've sent me a letter to tell me that the payment bounced!

Then there's the council... I sent my flatmate to pay the rent. It's the first week of the new financial year, and I knew that the rent had gone up, but I couldn't remember by how much... except I knew it was now £53-something. So she explained that we couldn't remember the amount, but could the girl check the computer? So the girl checked, and said that we had this week's rent, and a balance of £11-something from last week that hadn't been paid, making £75. Viki told her that we paid £11 last week, as per the letter we had been sent telling us that this was all that was outstanding to the end of the 2008 / 09 year, and could she please check again? So she pushed a couple more buttons and said "It's definitely £75". To which Viki said "No... We paid what we were meant to. Please ask someone else." So the girl got on the phone to the rents section... and the upshot was that their bloody computer still hadn't been updated from last Friday, and we had indeed made the payment, and were only due to pay £53!!!!

These things are sent to try us!

I Made It!

I survived my first day back at work since Saturday 29th December... but it was a struggle.

For a start, I was so afraid I would sleep in that I woke up sometime after 3am, then again about 5am, then I lay and sort of half-slept until about half past 6... at which point I gave up trying to get any more sleep and watched cartoons instead.

Then, when I ventured outside to wait for my taxi, it was to a hard frost, and the council workmen making ready to start digging up the road outside again (they've stuck silly pavements at weird angles in the roadway outside to try and slow traffic - which took them about a bloody month before Christmas, and I thought they were finished... but, no, they're back again).

Work was busy... down in the bloody shop all day - I'll be so glad when we get a replacement for our ex-shopgirl. At least I'll be up in the office for the morning part of tomorrow, because I've got to do the wages - but I expect I'll be back down serving the masses in the afternoon.

Came home to a line of cones, and a trench dug across the road, meaning you can't get a car within about 50 yards of the place... and it was frosty again... and it will be again tomorrow morning - It's going to be a miracle if I get to the taxi without landing on my erse!

Also came home to a poor cat who'd been closed out all last night, and today... Harriet didn't come home last night, and she's obviously got used to me being home all day, because she didn't realise she had to be in before 9am if she wanted in before I went to work. Poor mog... but she should learn from her mistake for tomorrow morning, if she happens to venture out tonight.

Well, that's about all from my day. Has life returned to normal for everyone else, then?

I Shall Not, I Shall Not Be Moved!

Well, not into that house I was looking at last night, anyway.

I had reasonable hopes for it, but it was pretty poky and there was mould in a couple of corners of the bedroom - despite the fact that's it now meant to be ready to be allocated to someone to move into!

I took my digital camera with me to take a couple of photos, but I couldn't get far enough away from any of the walls of any rooms to get a photo that you could gauge the size of the room - and in the kitchen, the floor space was only just big enough for your averagely built bloke to lie down... his head at the far wall, his feet at the door, the sink and a small work top on one side, and the space for a cooker between 2 small work tops on the other side!

At this moment, I would rather rattle about in a house that's too big for me, than commit myself to a poky little place like that where I couldn't even fit a laundry basket in the bathroom, it's that small! Especially as the rent for a one-bedroomed house (which is all I would be offered) is only about £8 less a week than what I'm paying now for the 4-bedroomed house I'm in now.

It's madness... here's the council supposedly desperate to get their mitts on big houses for families, and yet they won't go the distance of themselves to find something for me so that they can get mine!

Yes, I'm being selfish... but I don't care.