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Novacon, and combusion, and banking

♥Nov. 9th, 2015 // 08:05 pm
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[xpost |http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1120477.html]

Ladies, are we frock swapping next weekend? I have a bag o'stuff, as does [livejournal.com profile] helenx. Anyone else up for it?

In other news, today we finished the first half of the leylandii: hurrah! It now no longer looks as though we randomly started in the middle of the row and worked outwards!

(It wasn't actually random, it was the place with the fewest plants between the lawn and the hedge.)

Then, the wind being right, we burnt them.

I also decided that it was nearly as easy to move the contents of the other bonfire pile over to the existing fire as it was to pull it apart and make a new fire, so that's all done now as well.

In Adventures In Bureaucracy, the Charity bank account is with Barclays, and on Friday I received a Very Large cheque for the charity, from a company that apparently still operates in the stone ages* and does things like posting cheques to people, done on their special cheque printing machine (seriously, wtf? Is it just that they foolishly bought a few pallets of the custom paper and now feel they must use it? I can't decide if it's more or less bizarre than the people who do a BACS transfer and then print and post a remittance advice, thus telling you that they've sent you some money a week or so after you saw it appear in your online banking).

* Although not as antiquated as the people behind direct debits. Why on earth do I need to write the address of 'my' branch on the form? More to the point, what is it? It's not on my bank statements. My cheque book contains the address but -- wtf -- not the post code. Googling for "'bank name' + 'street name'" gives two results at opposite end of the country, and only the one that's obviously wrong includes a postcode in the excerpt on the search results page....

I was going to spend an hour and a bit driving into town, walking from the carpark to the bank, paying it in, and then reversing the process, but it was pissing down and I couldn't be arsed. On Saturday, I needed to go to the Post Office anyway. "Hmmm," I said to Mike, "Is Barclays one of the banks that I can do transactions at the Post Office?" He looked it up and reported that the Post Office website said I could indeed pay in cheques at a Post Office but needed a Special Envelope, which I could order from Barclays (unlike, say, the bank that we use personally: there you also need a Special Envelope, but you can get them from the Post Office. Natch.).

Although I didn't have a Special Envelope, and being a cynical sort, while I was there I asked at the Post Office. "You can pay in cheques to Barclays accounts here," I was told, "as long as your paying in slip has a barcode on it." Hmm. (Mine does not.)

Today, I decided that I really had better get it paid in, and anyway Mike needed a chainsaw chain sharpening, so I went into town and visited Barclays. While I was there, I casually said to the Nice Young Man "So, is there any way I can pay cheques into this account without coming into the branch?" Well, he explained, there was a pilot scheme, but it had been a pilot scheme for quite a long time now.... "So I couldn't pay it in, say, at the Post Office?" Oh, there was something about the Post Office, he'd just check with his colleague. Apparently, I can pay cheques in at the Post Office as long as I had a special Paying In slip, which I could get from the Post Office.

Sigh. To give up or to face the torment that is offshored customer service helplines...? Ok, that's not actually a question, is it?
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Eventful day

♥Sep. 24th, 2015 // 07:54 pm
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[xpost |http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1108970.html]

This morning it was moist, so we put of riding until the afternoon and, after we'd done the yard jobs, I retired to the kitchen: spiced elderberry cordial, sorting the boxes of apples and tomatoes with subsequent passata and apple juice, general tidying.

Mike, meanwhile, was upgrading my iPhone to iOS 9, as he'd already got it downloaded and wanted to do it before it started requiring 9.1 (or whatever the never version is). It seemed to be taking a terribly long time.

When we got in after walking Jo, the phone rang and a nice young man said he was calling from the bank. I pointed out that my phone was showing a different number to the bank's, and he said he'd leave a note on my account with his extension number. A quick call to Mike's mobile Just In Case and I was soon speaking to him again: First Direct is running a reward scheme for long-term customers, and they're sponsoring the Northern Ballet this year, and they're doing Wuthering Heights in Canterbury next month and would I like to go? Two free tickets, drinks receptions before and after, talk from the director, Meet The Cast. Oh, go on then. I don't think Mike's very keen but I'm sure I'll find a taker (anyone fancy it? I have asked Mrs Next Door as well, but she doesn't strike me as the ballet type).

(Mike is in a small huff, because he's been a customer for much longer and they didn't offer him tickets to a thing he had no interest in seeing. I pointed out that they may be deliberately offering them to women. Then I remembered the time they gave me a case of wine for being a good customer, too!)

Around this time, Mike learnt that there was a known bug in iOS 9, fixed in 9.1 (see above), that left it hung at the 'swipe to restart' stage, and started downloading 9.1 (ditto) in the hope he could just overwrite it.

A bit more faffing in the kitchen, and sticking a cake in the oven, and going Harvesting in the garden (the tomatillos in the ground have done much less well than the ones in pots on the patio, which seemed odd. But suddenly they've gone mad with enormous fruit since I took out the tomatoes plants next to them!) and it was time to take Jo to the vet for jabs and a general check-up. I got about two miles from home and the car started making A Noise, which I thought might be a branch under the car: I pulled into a parking space and had a look. Couldn't see anything but, oh, wait, that corner of the car seems to be lower down than it should be: flat tire. Better call Mike. Oh, wait, my phone's both bricked and at home. Just as I started to swear, a dog walker came back to his car and let me borrow his phone (I think he was a bit worried I was going to ask him to change the tire!). Mike remembered, as I had not, that there was an electric pump in the car, so I got the tire pumped up and made it home. One quick tire change later (he's had practice, recently!) and I was re-booked at the vet and on my way again.

Jo was her usual good self, even if she hates having the Kennel Cough vaccine up her nose, and was long-suffering when having her bum squeezed (she's been itchy lately). She didn't want to lie down and roll over for the vet to check where she had the cancer removed, so in the end I just picked her up and sat on the chair with her on my lap, facing out. The vet was bemused and impressed, particularly when Jo stayed in the same position to have her claws trimmed! ("I'll have to remember that trick... although I can't imagine many dogs would stay in that position while I did their claws...") Jo'd not been brushing her teeth properly, though, and needs them cleaning. The vet sternly warned me to keep an eye on her weight until I get it done, as the price for sedation goes up at 35kg and she's currently 34.45.

We did manage to ride, after I got back, which was good except that GB was favouring his dodgy leg a little, which is always worrying. There seemed to be an awful lot of washing up when we got in, though, and that plus cleaning the kitchen floor (shocking state, simply shocking. Please don't listen to anyone who tells you I'm house-proud) occupied the time until dinner, and now that I've written this I'm off to give the boys their evening hay!

Edit: Oops. It appears that the things we failed to do today was put the ducks to bed after we'd ridden: the perils of breaking your routine. They'd gone in on their own, though, and nothing had followed them home. Phew.
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