THREE WEEKS HOME AND STILL COUNTING

Well the 'fun' continues. I don't think I told you earlier but when we left Bury to go to Heathrow I set Deidre to take me there. OE (operator error) took a front seat. I did not realise that 'she' was set for shortest route instead of quickest route. Because of this she took us right through London. To say that things were tense for a while would be an understatement. But when I realized that Deidre knew where we were going I sat back and enjoyed! the experience. That event had a (costly) consequence this week. I received a letter from the Car Rental Company (notice how I deliberately left their name out of it). Those of you in the UK will probably guess what is coming next. For the others let me explain. There is an area in central London called the Congestion Zone or some such thing. There is a toll or tax payable if you drive thorough the zone. Yes you guessed it, I went through that zone apparently. I did not know where the boundaries of the zone were, in fact I did not even know where I was. I just followed Deidre's direction blindly and thought I was pretty clever when I arrived at Heathrow safely and on time. The letter I referred to advised me that the Car Hire Company had been approached by the authorities in relation to my 'offence'. I was advised that they had given my name and address to the authorities (whoever that may be). Here comes the best part, they had debited my card for the cost of this, not the fine, just the cost of supplying my name and address. That was equivalent to over $257 Australian!!!! And I thought that computers made this sort of thing easy! No doubt I still have a fine coming my way which will probably be another $500 or so. All because I didn't pay an eight pound ($19 approx) tax.

My insurance claim is still coming. A week ago I received an SMS message to say that it had been finalised and the details had been posted. When I had heard nothing after 5 days I phoned to see why. Even though I had been advised that it had been posted it seems that the SMS was generated by the computer after my claim had been dealt with by the case manager, it then had to go to the auditor, payment section and mailing section before it would actually be mailed. Still I wait. I am still using the borrowed monitor.

My report to the Bank about the fraudulent withdrawals from my account received very prompt attention. In a word it was my fault. It appeared to be a stock letter giving a list of reasons why it was my fault. No I'm a pretty placid bloke, some of the time anyway, but that got my hackles up. Using the information that they supplied in their letters I pointed out to them that the withdrawals were made over one and a half hours after I had reported the theft and the card should have been stopped. In about 2 days from posting the money was back in my account. Top marks to the Bank.

Well enough of my miseries.

We have settled back into 'normal' life again. Ann was due for several medical check-ups so we have spent several days doing the rounds of the medical fraternity. All the news is good, there is no evidence of any re-occurrence of her cancer. She has an appointment to go to her eye specialist soon but we know that there is nothing that can be done. We are coping OK with that but would obviously prefer not to have to.

Our summer weather is with us now, it is starting to get hot and steamy. We have also had some useful rain which is a good sign. Our summer months are our 'wet' time and we have had quite a few years with below average rainfall. I hope this year can change all that. Actually last year was better than we have had for ages so while it was below average it was still pretty good. Water rationing is now a way of life and I suspect that it will remain for ever now. That is probably a good thing as we were too wasteful with that precious resource for a long time.

I think I will leave it at that for now. Next post I hope the lap top is fixed as using this monitor is a bit awkward.

Until the next time, cheers to all and God bless. Dave and Ann.