Giving birth to a new Kitchen

I seem to be breaking the frugal financial habits of a lifetime & have just put down a deposit on a new kitchen. Given what this house cost me and the fact that it's only 7 years old it is amazing to me that I need one. But, and it's a big but, I really don't like the current layout & the whole kitchen is really worn & tired. That's what no maintenance & 10 tenants do for you I suppose. So for the first time in my life I am going to have a good kitchen that I have helped design, which will meet my expectations as I age gracefully, (maybe).

What has been interesting is the process which I have gone through to get to the point of ordering. I looked at 3 companies - DIY Kitchens, (an on line company), Howdens, (a company which only sells through installers, so the price varies according to who does the job), and Wren a company which has high street showrooms.

By far the most work is necessary if you go with DIY Kitchens, but what they offer is a very high quality spec', many more options than the other two & an extremely competetive price. This link shows just how good they are compared to other companies.  http://www.diy-kitchens.com/about-diy-kitchens/price-and-quality-comparison/  Howdens offer wonderfully comprehensive brochures which give you a lot of choice & information. The drawback is, having had a designer out to measure I can't seem to get even a ball park figure for what the kitchen will cost, so how can I compare?

In the end, because of all the hassles I have had with the house - replacing the fuse box & downlights because they didn't comply with H&S, the central heating failing completely & replacing the boiler, a roof leak into the study in the dreadful recent weather conditions, being unable to lock the front door, acid leaking from the alarm battery & being unable to switch the alarm off, to name but a few of the more important ones...... I have gone with the easiest, but not cheapest option which is Wren.

You get what you pay for in this life by an large. The designer, Dan, was extremely good at his job & was backed up by excellent software & graphics which he knew inside out. The process, a site visit to measure up + 2 consultations in the excellent showroom, was enjoyable & constructive. What I wanted was of prime importance & was refined down to a really good design. The only real complaint I have is that I think Wren could provide a bit more information in the brochure, but that's because I like working from hard copy, rather than a screen. If the website was a bit more informative, showing the many in cabinet fittings options for example, it would help.

I'm really pleased that I have bought a British manufactured kitchen made by state of the art technology. We do seem to have caught up with the Germans in using infinitely flexible & precise technology to manufacture a good quality spec'. Can't wait to have it.

National Treasures & Sell By Dates

I listened to Saturday Live on Radio 4 this morning. Michael Palin had re-visited Ethiopia & did a piece from Axum which claims to have the Ark of the Covenant containing the tablets of stone in an Orthodox church. A monk is the caretaker guardian & he never leaves the building. The Axumite kingdom goes back to 5,000 years BC & became Christian in around 356 AD.

I was really irritated by the banal & patronising questions put to a local guide by Mr Palin. For example he asked if he could become the monk guardian. Would he, I wonder, ask a Catholic senior cleric in the Vatican the same question about becoming the Pope? Or indeed, more possible, ask an English Bishop if he could become the Archbishop of Canterbury? Of course not. So why would he feel that the question and the silly way it was asked be acceptable?

I have been to Ethiopia & to Axum. The one thing that stands out in many wonderful memories of that country & it's people is how devout they are. One has only to see the processions & church ceremonies to realise that they have something which we have largely lost, a real belief which is part of their everyday life. A life, which in Northern Ethiopia where Axum is, is very hard indeed for the majority. People walk miles to go to church.

I do think it is a shame when entertainers spoil their hard won reputations because they don't realise that they have passed their "sell by date". Personally I can't watch Strictly Come Dancing because I am so irritated by Bruce Forsyth. It is sad to see him struggle to remember the joke & get the timing right. Not to mention that comedy has moved on light years from the music hall days.

We all get old. The trick is to do it gracefully without embarrassing ourselves.

Raining on my life.

It's raining in my house! All of the extreme weather over the last 2 months, high winds & torrential rain, has revealed that once again my vendor was economical with the truth about the house. He assured me that the damp patch in the study, (which he painted over), was the result of a leak from the shower in a room on the top floor & had been fixed. Definitely not so according to a roofer & a maintenance man. It's coming from the flat roofed patio area above.

So, I had a sodden carpet which alerted me to the problem & now have a bucket catching the drips when it rains. I'm not sure exactly when it happened - who looks up at the ceiling when you are going through a door? It was the wet carpet that made me look up.

The thing is it's not straightforward, certainly not for someone like me who knows nothing whatsoever about roofs. Is it a faulty Sarnafil membrane & how long is the guarantee on the product?- Is it a bodged roofing job by the main contractor? (The roofer showed me where there should be lead flashing & someone has made a bit of a hash of putting some sort of silicone sealant on. So the vendor must have known there was a problem). Did the main contractor do the work, or did he sub' the work out? If so, who to?

The house was completed in December 2006, how long is the build guaranteed for? I would expect a roof to last longer than 7 years. Surely even if builders don't have NHBC guarantees, they have to insure a new build for a reasonable length of time? What is a reasonable length of time for a new house to last? At least 10 years seems reasonable in my opinion.

I have tried contacting the main contractor, he washes his hands metaphorically. I have also tried the award winning local architects, several times, they don't respond at all. The manufacturer of the roofing membrane has responded, but not answered all my questions. Why am I not surprised? I didn't used to be so cynical.

Fortunately my buildings insurers are sending a loss adjuster out because the leak is caused by extreme weather - storms. So I'm hoping he will get something authorised temporarily & then a permanent repair. I wouldn't know where to start or who to employ. I will lose part of my 30% no claims bonus though & have to pay the excess of £150.

I feel as if it's been raining on my life for the last 4 months. On the bright side, I have learned not to panic, but take things one step at a time & find a solution. On the other hand I feel really let down that someone else's lack of conscience or any sense of obligation to honor a contract has landed me with all the problems.

I do believe in Karma though. "What goes around comes around." "Do unto others....."

Confidence & Anxiety

Not everyone is confident & we all have our own anxieties & fears. Unfortunately some people prey on that & take advantage. Sometimes I think that the most aggressive & confrontational people are like that because they are inwardly lacking in confidence & self belief. However I'm not a psychoanalyst.

I do just find it very difficult to deal with people who switch on the "fight" response rather than the "flight" one. In my experience it has mostly been men & it's usually men who can't cope with an assertive, competent & confident woman. There have only been a few times, thank goodness, when I have felt bullied as an adult. The men I'm thinking of didn't like the fact that I challenged their right to do as they pleased regardless of whether it was right or fair. It isn't always a case that justice wins either. Sometimes the pain isn't worth the gain & the sensible thing is just to back off - however galling that is.

Over the years I have learned to reflect on the situation & try to see the other person's point of view, however much I dislike their behaviour. That's the key I think - it isn't the person I have no time for, it's the behaviour they seem to think is appropriate. The words reasonable & proportionate just don't seem to be part of some people's vocaulary. They just want to win regardless & are seemingly incapable of empathising with someone else. The anxiety & pain they cause is just collateral damage in the war they fight against anyone who stands up to them.

A young friend has received some appallingly threatening communications from someone like this. She does a professional job & is very good at it. She is concientious & caring & completely in the right as far as I can see, (I know I could be biased!) I am just baffled at really bad behaviour which seems to be increasingly a part of life today. Rage seems to be endemic. You have to be quite brave to stand up to it & there are risks in doing that.

It shouldn't be like this.

Decorations

I spent the weekend hanging pictures. It's more complicated than I remember from the last time, because I've got quite a lot of wall. Then, do you group or not group? If you group how do you arrange the combinations? Is the criteria subject, frame, too much / little light, or sentimental links? You have to be able to get closer to small pictures & big ones look better from a distance. Finally there's the measuring.... cms / inches & remembering which you used? Holding a group with only two hands is tricky. It's certainly not possible to stand back & look. So you have to take the plunge & hope it's right.

At the end of it all I was really pleased. It's a good feeling knowing that I did it myself & I like what I did. Contrary to my expectations I actually could buy some more pictures - how good is that?

This morning my friend D came for breakfast to do me two flower arrangements. One for the hall & one for the kitchen. I'm not precious about artificial flowers so long as they aren't cheap & nasty. However I am not good at arranging them. D is a whizz, quick, decisive & very artistic with it. So two very tasteful, very different arrangements which give me great pleasure. And a wreath for the door - what a bonus.

Later I got down the Christmas tree which hasn't been out of storage for at least 5 years. Dave, (husband), always assembled it, but it was colour coded so even I could do it. For an artificial tree it isn't bad. The next thing is to be very selective about the baubles. Less is more & a restricted colour palette for me. If I'm going to "do" Christmas it's only going to be in a restrained way & all the surplus is going to a charity shop.

All of this is time well spent. My house is personalised & feels more like my home.

Mandela - Man before Icon

I didn't know Nelson Mandela. I only know of him because of the legend he has become during my lifetime. Others have eulogised him far better than I could. His memory and legacy will remain long after he has gone. It isn't often that one person has the impact that he has had, so the temptation to deify him is strong.

I do hope we will resist that, because the really extraordinary thing about Mandela is that he was not a saint. He was an ordinary man - Gifted, intelligent & relatively privileged compared to many of his compatriots. Mandela's power lay in the articulate simplicity of his message & his willingness to sacrifice everything he had in order to overthrow the abomination that was Apartheit and White Supremacy in South Africa.

One of the interesting things about Mandela is the complexity of the things he did & stood for. How did he reach the balance between passive resistance & "terrorist" action? There are real contradictions in his life as there are in all our lives. We all make mistakes, as he did, about AIDS & corruption in the ANC for example. Somehow he is the better for that & gives us hope that we might be the better for our mistakes.

Mandela allows himself & us to be fallible and imperfect yet ultimately triumphs over that. Mandela holds out the hope for all of us that the world can be a better place where peoples can live in tolerance & understanding. There is a place for redemption & reconcilliation in this mired world of conflicts.

The world needs more Mandela's. Sadly they are in very short supply. All we have is two dimensional politicians who are passionate about nothing except self & power. Mandela didn't need "focus groups" or PR to tell him what to think or do or believe. Mandela knew what was right & did not let himself be deflected from that by self aggrandisment or expediency.

A life well lived. May he rest in peace.

More - Buy nothing day

Buy Nothing Day (BND) is an international day of protest against consumerism. In North America, BND is held the Friday after Thanksgiving (November 29, 2013). Elsewhere, it is held the following day, which is the last Saturday in November.^[1][2] BND was founded in Vancouver by artist Ted Dave^[3] in September 1992.
It was organized as a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption."^{[5][citation not found]} In 1997, it was moved to the Friday after American Thanksgiving, also called "Black Friday", which is one of the ten busiest shopping days in the United States! BND was initially denied advertising time by almost all major television networks except for CNN.^[1] Soon, campaigns started appearing in the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Austria, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, the Netherlands, France, and Norway. Participation now includes more than 65 nations.^{[5][citation not found]}     - Wikipedia.

<sup>The irony of the juxtaposition of Thanksgiving, Black Friday & BND  and the excessive 
consumerism of our modern lives, let alone Christmas, is not difficult to see. While I 
welcome anything which makes people stop and think about their purchasing choices
in any sphere, at any time, I just don't think a day is enough.

If our enormous levels of debt & credit don't make us stop profligate spending, I doubt 
whether a named day will. Neither does job insecurity, short term / part time / zero 
hours contracts or unemployment seem to do the trick. Today's Western culture 
believes in our right to have something new, now. When we have finished with it we 
don't have any qualms about replacing it with the latest model, even if the old one is 
still perfectly adequate.

Our's is the society of more. The more we have the less we value it & the more we want. 
We are the slaves of the Ad Men, who come to us like an angelic visitation through our 
TV's, phones & computers. We want to have what our neighbour has, better if possible. 
Give us posh labels, high spec', (never mind we will never use half of the capability).
The latest, the biggest, ever more, ever changing to satiate our endless desires. We 
will queue for hours & fight each other for it if necessary.

B..... Buy Nothing Day - lets have Buy Nothing Week or Month or Year. Better to do 
it voluntarily than have it forced on us by used up resources. 

Look at Easter Island!</sup>

Meditation - A web of Support

I went to a group meditation with a good friend this morning. Before the catastrophe that was 2009 I used to meditate alone several times a week. After 2009 I tried, but found I couldn't get back into it, apart from the fact that I find swimming very meditative. So this morning was a pleasure & a surprise.

Stilling the mind is very difficult. Our minds are dictators of mood & action. We have been programmed, hardwired, conditioned, from our earliest years, to be the people we are today. We think. We rewind. We imagine. We project. We don't question whether this is a good thing or not. We just accept it, because it has always been like that. We are intelligent. We think & therefore we try to control. Meditation practice teaches us how to stop the mind from fast forwarding us into actions which may be egocentric. It helps us reflect.

This morning I found myself meditating on the fact that everyone in that room had problems. Physical, emotional, practical problems, some quite serious. That is life. Then I had a very powerful image of a spiders web glistening with frost or dew & being suspended in it. The people meditating were the spokes of the web, giving it strength, cradling us. Each of us was supporting the others & strengthening the web.

We are all individuals, but we all need support. We all need to trust someone enough to let them in & give us the help we need. We also need different types of support at different times for different problems. The web of people available to us is invisible but our friendships make it strong & tangible.

Our friendship webs can help deliver us from the turbulent seas of life to the calm waters of the safe harbour if we let them. Our webs won't necessarily solve the problems, but they might help us to cope with them.

Difference - Pack Animals

Bijan Ebrahimi was beaten to death & set on fire in Bristol after being repeatedly harassed with hate crimes for years. His requests for help went unanswered & ignored. He was failed by his neighbours and all the agencies who came into contact with him. His killer admitted murder & was sentenced yesterday.

He was different. he was disabled & foreign. He was alone. The most poignant image I saw was of his house bedecked with flowers lovingly tended by him in an area of stark deprivation.

What is it about human beings that makes us behave like this? At best ignoring the wrongs we can clearly see happening. Are we simply afraid of standing out & standing up for weaker members of society? Is it just self preservation if we are unfortunate enough to live in a less than desirable area? Or is it some deeper unacknowledged instinct to behave as a pack & turn on the weak & unprotected? Malthus theory of population & Darwin survival of the fittest reduced to the worst common denominator.

I found this story deeply harrowing & upsetting. I cannot imagine what the relatives & friends of Bijan must feel about their adopted "democratic" & fair country. This sort of behaviour calls into question the whole basis of our society. How civilised are we if this can be allowed to happen? How effective are our laws, our sense of justice & those who supposedly enforce them?

Equally how have these young men grown up to become so lacking in any sense of right & wrong or empathy with another human being? How is it possible to treat the head of another human being like a football? It is sickening. What is wrong with their family background & the parenting skills which brought them to this? If they came from disfunctional families why didn't our education system repair some of the damage done over the 11 years of public education?

So many questions & so few answers. Sometimes I feel we are on the edge of chaos & mob rule. I just have to hope that the good defeats the evil.

The rocky road of ups & downs.

I had a lovely morning yesterday. Maryon, (daughter) came to help me decide which pictures to hang where. Not as easy as you may imagine if you have a blank canvas of white walls on 3 floors. Do you group? How / what are the criteria for grouping? What are your favourite pictures to go in the most used areas? Which pictures have sentimental value? Will the light damage the picture, it it too dark to see it properly? Pictures say as much about you as books. You definitely need more than one person making the choices, if only so someone can hold the pictures up.

I reckon we possibly ended up deciding on nearly half of my pictures. Either today or tomorrow, my helpful maintenance man Mike will come to put the chosen ones up - maybe. Knowing that involved a top to bottom search of the house to find where I had put the picture hooks! I'm really looking forward to seeing the pictures in place now. Especially the Buddhist Thangka painting I brought back from working in Nepal. That will be a while yet because the removers broke the frame & it's at the framers.

Mike is a bit of a life saver. Having discovered that the leak from the flat roof had come through again in the study, despite Mr C's assurance that it was from the ensuite & had been fixed. Mike inspected the whole upper floor and agreed it was the roof not the ensuite. He went away & turned up with a length of plastic guttering to take the water from the down pipe away from the corner where the leak is. It's only a temporary fix while I await a response to yet another letter to Mr C. (A completely futile hope going on past experience, but I may need a "paper trail"). I wouldn't have thought of the solution, so I am immensely grateful.

I am moving forward - slowly.

Argument - Disagreement - Absolute Truth.

Argument - a quarrel, altercation, debate.
Disagreement - a refusal or failure to agree, an argument or dispute.
Absolute Truth - Not dependent on, conditioned by or relative to anything else.

I wonder how long I could continue telling nothing but the absolute truth? I don't think it would be very long. Mostly because telling the truth often means hurting or offending others and I wouldn't want to do that. I may for example think that a friend looks absolutely dreadful in certain clothes, or made up in a certain way. A friend means a lot to me so I wouldn't want to undermine her confidence. Also it would just be my opinion & taste & could I honestly say that was the absolute truth considering the fashion disasters I have been guilty of? (A sunshine yellow trouser suit springs to mind!)

I don't mind being involved in a disagreement, in fact If the subject is interesting & the other party is well informed I actively enjoy it. Political or philosophical argument is challenging & broadens your horizons. People who are passionate about a subject are much more interesting than those who follow the crowd & don't have any convictions to be courageous about. The trick is to listen and be prepared to change your view if presented with compelling evidence. You also need to know your subject & the arguments which support your view so you can sway someone else's viewpoint.

An argument is a different matter entirely. Emotions are involved. Lasting harm can be done to a relationship. There are people, not many thank goodness, who I have lost contact with completely because things were said which simply couldn't be unsaid & forgotten. Usually this all happens too quickly in the heat of the moment, under great stress. The harm is done.

So with the benefit of age, I would now try very hard not to get involved in an altercation or argument. It simply isn't worth the harm it inflicts on both sides. In order to achieve this more steady state I think you have to compromise, whilst knowing what the boundaries are which you won't cross.

In trying to apply this personal theory to our parliamentary democracy, (so called), I am not surprised that politicians have lost the confidence & trust of the population. The quality of debate in the Lower House is rubbish. Truth is lost in the miasma of half truths & downright lies. Politicians are not allowed to have their own independent opinions, the party Whips see to that. There is no respect for an opposing view & definitely no willingness to change your stance. That would be political suicide. All too often the heat of the moment means that the "debate" descends into unedifying caterwauling.

Politics & politicians have become synonomous dirty words. Maybe we do get the politicians we deserve.

Nesting - Order out of chaos.

All the flat pack is assembled thanks to D who has spent 3 days doing it. That's real friendship, giving your time & effort to help someone else. So, a big thank you to him. Now all my stuff has a place & hopefully my brain will remember where everything is! (That's doubtful actually).

I can now walk into every room without negotiating a minefield of boxes & things. Miraculously it is now obvious what each room is for. It does seem crazy that despite all my efforts to give lots of "stuff" away I still have enough to fill a 5 bedroom house.

There are still outstanding problems - A boiler that hasn't worked for weeks, but will be replaced hopefully on Wednesday. (Ironically the last day my vendor has to respond to my court summons) - An alarm system that won't turn off, but a man is coming tomorrow to fix it, (maybe). However, now there is light & possibly heat at the end of the tunnel. It has all been much more problematical than I expected. But that's life, as the Dowager Countess of Grantham said in "Downton Abbey" - a series of problems to overcome & then you die! Each problem overcome is a lesson learned & a boost to self confidence & self belief.

I am deeply grateful to all my friends who have helped me in one way or another. Everything from encouragement in times of panic or despair, suggestions for solutions to problems, feeding me when I didn't have the time to think about food & endless practical help. Most of all just being there, physically present or at the end of a phone or by texting & email.

In the end we do all have to live our own lives, whatever those lives hold. No one can do that for us however close we are to them. We are essentially alone. But a real friend is more important than anything else, except perhaps good health. We are social animals, we need each other to share the good times & the bad. Friendship means giving as well as taking. I have a debt of giving back to repay now.

The next thing is hanging the pictures, but that will be fun.

First / Worst Great Western

I had to go up to London for a meeting on Friday the 15th November. I was just in time to catch the 15.51 Paddington to Oxford train home. I had to walk the length of the train until I reached the First Class carriage to even be able to get on. Every aisle & lobby area between carriages was full of people standing.

I resigned myself to standing until Reading. There were 19 people plus their luggage in the space between first class & second class. There was no space for even one more body. I lent against the wall with the toilet door in it. Big mistake. The stench of urine was overpowering, especially when the train was moving. Two men used the toilet during the journey. One was nearly gagging when he came out & said it was really dreadful inside.

There were 2 drop down seats occupied by a young man & a young woman. Neither offered me their seat. By the time we got to Reading I was really struggling. There was no respite. A couple of men decided to go into the first class compartment, but more people got on & no one got off. No British Rail employees made any attempt to stop anyone else getting on the train despite the obvious level of overcrowding.

Trying to retain my balance with nothing to hold onto was difficult. It got unbearably hot, so I had to try to remove layers of clothing. The noise was deafening & if I lent my head against the wall there was also a horrible buzzing vibration.

I can't stand for long at the best of times. This was torture. By the time we reached Oxford I could barely get off the train my legs were so stiff and painful. When I got into the station I asked at the information desk why the train was so overcrowded. Naively I thought there must have been a problem. The man behind the desk just said there were a lot more people travelling nowadays! Indeed, the station was heaving.

When there are so many petty Health & Safety restrictions how can a public transport carrier get away with this complete disregard for passengers comfort & safety. All the passengers paid their fare to be transported from A to B. It is not unreasonable to expect a seat to be part of the contract. Why don't First Great Western put more carriages on at peak times. They surely know when there is going to be this level of overcrowding. Needless to say there was no sign of a guard. He wouldn't have been able to walk down the train!

If there had been a crash the death & injury toll on that train would have been horrendous. There would be a public enquiry. First Great Western & British Rail would have wrung their hands & said it must never happen again. Heads might roll - maybe.

It isn't good enough. They must know what the problems are at peak times. This should not be allowed to continue. It's literally like playing Russian Roulette with your health / life on a train. Or "Murder on the Oxford Express"

Form over Function - Style over Practicality

My new house, (it isn't yet a home), is all superficial glitz. There are quite major underlying impracticalities & stylistic errors to my eyes.

For example, the electrics. I've just had to replace the fusebox & 27 downlights because the box doesn't comply with safety standards & the lights are the old sort with transformers & no heat shield therefore are a fire hazard. But worse than that is the fact that there simply aren't enough lights & the ones that there are are not where you need them. Who in their right mind would put 4 downlights close to each other & a wall of windows & none in the rest of the room? Most of the actual rooms only have uplights & not enough of those. The dining room only had 1, so electricians have just had to make several holes in the ceiling to put in a modern fitting. Maybe the architect & the vendor never read anything.

Then there are the windows. Modern, probably very expensive, but a lot are non opening! For example in an ensuite bathroom. Why would you do that? Possibly for cheapness.

The front door is again probably very expensive - some sort of resin? Both mine & the next door one are cracked. Presumably because they face the South & West strong sunlight which has made them brittle?

The curved walls are very attractive, but make hanging pictures & placing furniture quite difficult. They also make moving furniture in & out a herculean task. I think my son in law's brother & father nearly had simultaneous heart attacks taking away a bed I gave them! As for the curved hall cupboard with no handles, which you had to bang to get your fingernails in to open - well I rest my case!

There are channels at floor level & round doors, with no architrave or skirting covering them. It looks as if the carpenter went off for a tea break & forgot. I expect in reality it was a style statement at the time. In fact it just looks utilitarian & unfinished. It certainly gathers dust.

It will all be sorted. I will make it a practical and attractive home. It's location is perfect for city living. It will just take time & money. (Given what I paid for the house, that is a bit galling). I just don't understand why you can't have good design, using modern materials, which is actually practical too. Maybe there is too big a gap between an architect's vision & a clients ability to live in a house in the 21st century.

Sods Law

Sod's law is a name for the axiom of "bad fortune will be tailored to the individual" and "anything that can go wrong, will" usually used sympathetically. In America Murphy's Law is more popular & polite.
Conversely good fortune will occur in spite of the individual's actions. This broadens Sod's law to a general sense of being "mocked by fate" - the irony of fate. The moral is let no stone be left unturned & don't accept an uncaring uninfluenceable fate.

In the last 2 months I have felt that Sod's law has perversely singled me out despite my best OCD efforts to leave no stones unturned.

Today for instance:-

• My car was supposed to be collected for repair & a courtesy car should have been delivered today. (Man reversed into the side of my car while it was parked, unoccupied, on a street. So his insurance is paying). My car taken away, but no courtesy car on job sheet. So I have to chase it up!
• Then I am also in the middle of chasing up a refund on my annual swimming card because I moved house. That has been going on since the beginning of September. 
• I am also having to deal with damage to an antique bureau bookcase which the carrier says was the auction house & the auction house say wasn't. Another auction house is simply not responding to any communication.
• My electrician & plumber have both disappeared into "black holes" so the work is still outstanding.
• My energy suppliers, Scottish Power, have put me on the wrong tariff - an expensive standard tariff instead of a fixed price one, what a surprise!
• BT have been charging my direct debit since I moved, despite my account supposedly being closed down. They haven't responded to 2 letters to their customer service address & I have spoken to 4 or 5 different people who all assured me they had it sorted.
• I have claimed for damage to my property by my removers & they have not acknowledged or responded in any way to the claim.
• I have an outstanding dispute with the vendor of my house over a CH boiler problem & he also doesn't respond to any communication - email or letter. He now has a summons to ignore!

In my more negative moments I feel I must have done something to invoke such a huge amount of bad Karma. On the other hand my more rational side says that generally speaking I'm a fairly reasonable & thoughtful individual who really doesn't "deserve" any of this time consuming hassle.

So what is the answer? Bloody incompetence - and I'm really fed up with it! Why can't people just behave reasonably & competently & DO THEIR JOB PROPERLY?

The Mysteries of Central Heating & the County Court.

Just had my first overnight guest. As not everyone has a personal internal combustion engine like me, I tried to get the central heating to work. Unsuccessful! The plumber had said to have the boiler on constant & control the radiators by the wall & rad thermostats. Well, there isn't a wall thermostat for the top floor & switching on the rad ones did nothing whatsoever. Similarly the ground floor has underfloor heating & switching on the wall thermostat did nothing either. (As an aside, exactly what I wonder, is under the floor tiles? Is it water in pipes or electrical wires?) As I've got no instructions it's all a mystery.

Anyway, the sale agreement on the house included sorting out the boiler leak which I discovered had done permanent damage after I moved in. The vendors own plumber said the boiler was permanently damaged & would continue to overheat & cut out. Continuous re-setting wouldn't be good & the boiler needed to be replaced.

Fired up by this lack of heat I have finally issued a summons against my elusive vendor who hasn't kept his side of the bargain. Nor has he responded at all to several written communications & an offer of mediation. I have to say I am most impressed with the whole thing. It's all done on line through www.moneyclaim.gov.uk & couldn't be easier.  It really only took a few minutes & a fee of £80, which is refunded if judgement is found against my vendor.

I look forward to a response & hopefully a cheque or better still a wodge of money. Winter is coming, I need to be warm.

Presents & Presence

Christmas is on the horizon. This year, even more so than previously, I don't have the inclination or the time to think about, shop for, wrap & give presents & send cards. I am completely bogged down with the demands of making my new house into my home. When you know you are no longer young & cannot with any confidence predict where you will be, or what you will be doing tomorrow, time is precious.

I really don't know what any of the people I have to buy for want or need. I also suspect that they will all have everything anyway. I'm not prepared to spend hours trawling round shops hoping inspiration will strike, (I simply don't have the energy). The chances are that I will either get something safe & boring or something that will go in the "present drawer" or to charity. It all seems such a waste of time & resources.

It seems to me that if Christmas means anything at all it is being with or making contact with people you like & love. It's a good time to make sure that we renew & maintain our friendships & family. Making the effort to reach out & share lives & events is important. In our busy lives today time all too often goes by too quickly & we realise that we haven't written, spoken or met up with people who matter to us.

It really isn't about the size of the gift or the cost. It isn't about "grand gestures" & overwhelming generosity. Spending money is relatively easy. Spending time with someone is far more valuable & costly. We are social animals. It should be about our presence in the lives of our friends & family. Preferably not just at Christmas, but regularly throughout the year. I'm really lucky. My friends have sustained me & given their time, advice & practical help unstintingly over the last year or so.

Good friends are the real blessing & spirit of Christmas. According to recent statistics lonliness is a major disease of the 21st century. We really should do something about that - not just on the 25th December.

Heinz 57 Varieties

Not quite! Instead 57 large & very heavy boxes of Ikea flatpack to go in a corridor, the dining area, my study & my "arty farty" room. When you do the order you really have no concept of; the sheer volume & weight, the amount of space the boxes take up, the difficulty of moving just one box, & finally matching the boxes together to make a unit. It's a good job I cleared the sitting room area, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get to the kitchen.

Then there's assembling it all. Maryon, (daughter), is coming at 3pm with 8year old twins. If we can move the boxes I can't do on my own it will help. Maybe we can get a couple of cupboards done too. She may be able to help a bit tomorrow too with Ed, (son in law). Then a couple of friends are coming on the 21st to help. Now I see the size of the problem I really think I need to find "a man who can" as well. This is above & beyond the call of friends & family.

So, temporary chaos - again. The sheer volume of cardboard to be re-cycled is completely beyond my small re-cycling box. I need a skip if I'm not to be buried.

It is daunting, but it is also quite exciting. Once it's assembled I will have the pleasure, to a slightly OCD, organised, person like myself, of putting everything away. Neatness & tidiness will reign supreme.

That may be some time off yet though.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

The world & it's wife seems to want me to do one of these surveys after every contact and transaction. It seems like a rash or a contageous disease which has spread to the four corners of the business world. Every online or phone contact I make seems to ask me to spare anything from a couple of minutes to the time taken to write a short story. I don't have either the time to waste or the inclination to evaluate everything I do.

I have serious doubts about how all of this information is correlated & used. Is there any evidence that it actually improves customer service or "the customer experience" - (what a nauseating phrase that is). Are there really huge teams of people analyzing all this data or does it all go into a vast black hole somewhere? If it is evaluated, could they be better occupied actually providing the service? Maybe then we wouldn't have to go through "War & Peace" sized phone menus & hang onto a phone interminably waiting to speak to a real person.

Do companies really need customers to tell them, in minute detail, what makes for good customer service? I would have thought it isn't difficult. Simple & clear information, delivered courteously, by someone who seems interested in what the customer wants & is able to match their needs to a product or service. Job done.

I do think that customer service has improved over the last decade. Mind you the base line was pretty appalling. Competition has made companies realise that satisfying their customers by delivering well designed products & services, at a good price point & in a timely fashion is the way to market share & therefore profit. I also like the fact that the people who we customers deal with identify themselves by name & refer to us by name too.

So plaudits as well as brickbats. Hopefully companies will tire of the interminable customer satisfaction surveys & just get on with the actual job of serving customers efficiently and fairly.

No Place Like Home

I've just had a blinding revelation after talking to a couple of friends about returning to my new house from holiday. I now realise why it simply doesn't feel like home.

A home is lots of different things. It's a refuge & a sanctuary from the world outside. A place to retreat to when life gets a bit tough. A comfortable place full of your own "stuff" which reflects who you are & what is important to you. A place filled with reminders of people & a life past. A place where you can be yourself & shed the image you present to the world. A place where you can relax & entertain friends & family. A very important place to your sense of self & well being.

For me, up to 2009, it was a place had always I shared with people I liked or loved. The whole of my life up to that point was spent living with someone else - parents, friends, a husband, a child, (now very much an independent adult). Adjusting to a solitary life has been a very mixed journey, not all bad & in some ways liberating.

This is the first house I have been totally responsible for. Choosing it, furnishing it, deciding exactly what goes where. At the moment it is in a state of mild chaos. It isn't as clean or organised as I would like & feel more comfortable with. There are lots of jobs outstanding because I'm waiting for work to be done & furniture to be delivered. It doesn't seem worth blitzing the cleaning until that is all completed.

The move here has been fraught with problems, some of which are ongoing & draining. Just coping with the million & one things you have to do when you move has taxed my brain & my energy to their limits, without the additional problems I have had - & some I still have. All of this impacts on how I feel about my house & explains why it doesn't, as yet, seem like a home.

Now I understand the underlying problem I can do something about it. I've set myself a goal to have the furniture in place, the boxes emptied & the cupboards filled with everything in it's proper place by the end of November. Also I want to have the electrics & the central heating sorted by then & the whole house deep cleaned. That gives me December to do the nice things like hanging pictures & showing off ornaments. The re-decorating can wait till next year.

So, with any luck, by Christmas it will finally feel like a home.

Holidays - Are they worth it?

I've just got back from a whistle stop tour in Spain. Salamanca to Segovia via Avila. Then most of the holiday in Madrid with trips out to Toledo, Aranjuez & Chinchon, The towns are beautiful & very interesting & Madrid is an art lovers dream. The architecture & paintings are stunning, although Baroque isn't my favourite style. The food is freshly prepared from good ingredients & very tasty, apart from that in the hotels we stayed at, which was fairly bland & not that hot.

Which leads me neatly to my first point. About a third of a coach full, (45 - 50), went down with a really nasty tummy bug. It seemed to be quite virulent, lasted a couple of days & left people really washed out. My friend & I were lucky, we didn't get it. The rep's handling of the situation left a lot to be desired. We are awaiting the response from the tour company.

The timetable we were given was changed, supposedly due to the Palacio Real in Aranjuez, which is about the only thing to see there, suddenly closing on Mondays. Later we discovered that it has been closed on Mondays for a very long time. This had the knock on effect of giving us less time in Toledo, which was a big disappointment because it is a highlight of the trip.

Both of these complaints could & should have been handled much better by the rep & the tour operator. The reason people got irritated and annoyed was because of the lack of good communication & response to circumstances.

I developed Oedema at some point presumably due to all the travelling in planes & coaches & standing around in galleries & buildings. I also picked up a throat / chest infection from being confined in the same planes & coaches with lots of people who were coughing. Then there was the morning headache & dizziness. Goodness knows what caused that, unless it was the pillow over my head! (See next paragraph).

Not much sleep for a week, due to a friend who snores more or less continuously, didn't help either. I did discover towards the end that if I used ear plugs & a pillow over my head I could get to sleep. It was rather ironic, because surprisingly the rooms were quiet. 

So the question is - is it worth it? Especially when you consider the time taken preparing before you go & catching up when you get back. 10 years ago I would have definitely said yes. You simply can't beat real first hand experience of different cultures, meeting people, seeing different places. Wherever I've been, however far flung & intrepid, it's the good things I remember not the bad. Now I'm not so sure. Especially considering the time taken to recover.

Maybe travelling is for the young.

Happiness is..

A new kitchen bin! Delivered yesterday. I have also now got 3 council bins - non recyclable, food waste, & recyclable. No more black plastic sacks in the kitchen - Hooray!

A new lockable steel cabinet in the car port for all the stuff that went in the garage or the shed, which I now don't have. Assembled for me by Maryon & Ed on Sunday. Tools out of the hallway - Excellent!

A solution to the problem of only one phone point in the whole house. A plug that lets you connect a computer anywhere in the house through a 3 pin socket - Amazing!

Another plug that has a shaver / toothbrush socket in so I don't have to go upstairs to the top floor to re-charge my toothbrush in the only socket in the house  - Fantastic!

A rug cleaned like new.

It really doesn't take a lot to make me happy. Must avoid looking at the long list of stuff yet to do, so as not to dispel this euphoria at problems solved.

On being ignored.

In this day and age people's "moral compass" seems to be more than 360 degrees. I am definitely morphing into a really grumpy old woman & will probably end up talking to myself or shouting aloud in the street.

Moving house is a frustrating minefield of problems, large & small, some fixable & some you just have to live with. I have finally, after 3 weeks, had to get my solicitor to write to the solicitor of my vendor, because he is ignoring emails & letters & hasn't done some of the maintenance that was agreed for the sale to proceed. Similarly my purchasers owe me quite a lot of money for things I left behind for them, which were not fixtures & fittings & they too are ignoring a letter & my emails. I try to treat people with respect & I expect them to respect me too. I find it really hard to understand how people can just knowingly ignore the right & fair thing to do. Maybe I'm just a dinosaur & am becoming extinct.

Oxford is full of tourists & students. Both species move around in packs. A pavement is only a certain width. If the pack are communicating they occupy the whole width of the pavement oblivious to the fact that there is an approaching, different, solitary, species. Obviously their antenna are malfunctioning. Or, possibly it really is true that after a certain age we become invisible. I may have to wear "dayglo" outfits or make noises as I approach them.

Finally there is the queue. Not having used public transport much in rural Berkshire or Gloucestershire I often find it difficult to work out where the front and back of the queue should be, especially in bus shelters. So I guess. If I am one of the first, I then seem to end up rammed up against the shelter wall by later arrivals. Again I must be wearing my invisibility cloak. The young simply can't see me.

I think I should cultivate bad habits like spitting, farting, belching & mumbling. Possibly there may be an advantage in not bathing too often either, or eating a lot of garlic.

Reunited!

After 2 weeks without one of my suitcases filled with clothes, including all my nighties & pyjamas, they were finally couriered on Wednesday. It has been a week of several positive moves in the right direction. The Stressless 2 seater settee, which the removers couldn't get up the stairs & said they couldn't dismantle, was successfully moved by one man with a screwdriver on Tuesday! (3 removers unable to do it!) The bill will be going to the removal company.

Also on Wednesday 3 good friends, K, C & D, visited from Newbury, (they brought their own biscuits too - not to mention flowers & chocolates). But best of all they solved a problem I had no idea about. My 3 seater reclining settee hadn't been put back together properly by the removers - big gap you could fall through. It was too big for the space in the sitting room, so their brilliant idea was to put the 2 ends together to make a 2 seater which fitted perfectly. The middle bit is going into my bedroom. I had no idea you could do that so would never have thought of it in a million years. D also set up my stereo so I can dance around in the space created by getting the settees sorted. The combined brain & muscle power of us pensioners is awesome.

Today's treat was discovering a Sainsbury's superstore 10 minutes away & getting some proper food in. It took me most of the morning, normally I'm faster than the speed of light. Tonight will be home made smoked salmon pasta in a creme fraiche sauce. Cook chill & take away's pall after 2 weeks.

So, apart from the death throes of my boiler, I think this week has been fairly productive. One of the cheeriest moments was videoing D and D doing a tango & exchanging a rose from mouth to mouth. Don't ask!!!

Boiler Rage

I have been here for 11days & for most of that time I have had no hot water / central heating. The lovely Gus has been twice & has now signed the death warrant of the boiler. The immersion also seems to have packed up too. The fault was noted by me & my surveyor & a condition of the purchase was that it should have been fixed by the vendor before I moved in.There had been a fairly catastrophic leak which has apparently done permanent damage, resulting in a permanent, intermittant problem with the pump overheating & causing "lockout". (I'm getting very familiar with central heating innards).

It's now going to cost £2,500 for a new boiler. I am hoping that the vendor will fullfil his obligations because the last thing I want to do is take legal action. Sometimes I do wonder if some greater power is testing me for sainthood. Not that I feel saintly - I'm very p.....off! At least the telly works.

I will just have to order a crate of wine and ignore all the problems.

Pitfalls & Pleasures

It's fascinating how fairly small things can make you almost ecstatic. After 9 days without the telly, (none of the aerial sockets worked), Catherine, a very competent woman TV engineer came today, (from Tetbury, how ironic is that), & I now have working TV's. This means I can collapse in a heap with a gin & tonic, glass of wine, or cup of tea, depending on how the day has gone.

Similarly it's a 5 minute walk to swim at Summer Fields school, where Maryon teaches, & up to now I've generally had the pool to myself, or shared it with only one or two others. (A heart attack might be bad news, but I'd go doing something I enjoy!) The population of North Oxford are probably better off now I don't need to cycle to Marston Leisure Centre.

I've got a bedroom which is blissfully quiet in the centre of a city & I can now walk round the bed & select something to wear from the wardrobe. On the negative side the removal men went off with a large suitcase which has all my nighties & pyjamas in. (There must also be something else, but I'm not sure what).

One of the pitfalls is the central heating system. Gus, a very nice South African heating engineer, came to breathe life into my boiler on Thursday so I was able to Dymo label all the switches, which up to then had baffled everyone who tried to work out the heating & hot water. That was the good news. Sadly the lights are on but no one's home. Although the control panel says it's working there's no hot water.

My lovely new neighbours invited me round for a drink this evening, so I was able to remind myself what a fully functioning house looked like. My old friends & neighbours are extremely good at boosting my morale with cheering emails, phone calls & practical help. Steve, my computer wizard, was able to sort out my errant wireless mouse long distance today. For some bizarre reason it woke up & refused to budge. On Steve's advice, a judicious prod with a big paperclip in the right place got it going again.

Life is a balance between good & bad. The former far outweighs the latter, but sometimes the latter obscures the former.

Friends - a prize beyond compare.

I am a very lucky woman.

This morning D & D arrived to see the house & help in any way they could. A goody bag including Dr Seuss "Oh the places you'll go", a bottle of wine, fruit, & a mug for tea in case I hadn't found mine! We all tried to work out the central heating & hot water - didn't succeed. But they did come up with practical suggestions & went away to find a TV engineer because none of the TV sockets work, and went online to get a Velux window pole because the owner hadn't left me one & you could expire in the top bedroom with the windows closed!

This afternoon A & N arrived & set to with gusto, again giving me practical ideas, moving furniture, getting rid of rubbish. N is a very practical man & got the cooker working, showed me what isolators are for & discovered all the maintenance work that hasn't been done by the owner as agreed. He advised that I should contact my solicitor & the agents because "the house is not fit for occupation". He couldn't understand the heating & hot water either! I hope that I can resolve this with the nice maintenance man employed by the owner rather than going the legal route though.

My son in law's mother popped in with a lovely plant. His brother helped me with the computer. Maryon has not only helped, but made sure I eat, & taken me swimming at Summerfields. I finally got round to opening my post & cards, (which cheered me up no end).

Just when I've got to the point of being overwhelmed by it all someone arrives & literally saves me. Not just in a practical way, vital as that is, but by cheering  me up & lifting my spirits, which I think is a even more important. I am very touched by such generosity.

It's really nice to know I'm not alone.

Up's & Down's

Immaculate is not anywhere on the horizon yet! 

Thursday - The removers didn't leave Oxford till after 7pm! Middle Way completely chaotic. You could barely move for boxes. Removers took little notice of what was written on the boxes / bags - (perversely they did read some of a previous clients labelling). Couldn't get 2 wardrobes & a 2 seater settee upstairs & removers didn't seem to think it was their job to haul stuff up through the big windows. 

Friday - completely exhausted & zombie like! Brain dead. Couldn't fit computer together. I was lucky to be able to stay with Maryon for two nights or I might have had complete meltdown. Things must improve.

Saturday -What a difference a day makes, (& a decent nights sleep). I'm connected, (thanks to Ed's brother John - Apparently I had been nearly there). Brain now functioning as well as the computer. Yesterday both of us were malfunctioning badly. Now all systems are "Go".

Sunday - Still boxes everywhere & complete chaos. Getting rid of the boxes is as bad as the actual unpacking itself. Discovered that having TV sockets in every room doesn't necessarily mean anything - All TV's say No Signal. There is miles, not an exaggeration, of bare wires in the sitting room & study. The consensus is that it has something to do with Sky / Virgin / Surround sound???? How can people leave a house like that?

No info whatsoever about C. heating, hot water, alarm, appliances!!! Spent a good 10 minutes the first day trying to lock the front door from the outside. Two of us couldn't open or lock it. A dollop of WD40 has helped. Can't open  / close several windows either! No shaver point to charge my toothbrush!!!

Velux windows on top floor - can't open or close - no pole! Lovely patio on top floor too - no key for door! Thinking of putting a Welcome mat for burglars / murderers.

Paid shedloads of money for this!

Complete Mental & Physical Exhaustion

A 7am start & the removal people didn't leave my new home till after 7pm, despite part loading the day before. The crew said that the estimator had completely underestimated the time needed & the van capacity. Great! They couldn't get 2 wardrobes & a 2 seater settee up the stairs to the first floor & said they didn't have the manpower or equipment to raise it up through the window. So I'm left with the problem to solve.

They didn't do what I wanted with the computer, i.e leave the wires attached to the peripherals, so I can't set it up till I find a wire which seems to be missing. Boxes went to the wrong rooms despite my best efforts. Some boxes they packed didn't say where they came from & old labelling hadn't been crossed out.You can barely move in the house for boxes even though we unpacked masses while we were waiting for the men to unload. So all the surfaces are covered with stuff too. Although I got rid of a huge amount of stuff before moving there simply isn't enough cupboard space to put it all.

There was no info in the new house, so I have no idea how the systems or appliances work. We couldn't operate the lock on the front door when we tried to leave! Downsizing is very difficult when you don't have a garage, shed, or loft to get rid of stuff.

All in all I'm in meltdown. I had to get up at 3am to write down the stuff that was buzzing around in my head. Simply couldn't think or do anything useful today. However I went for a swim this afternoon & gave up trying to achieve anything.

Tomorrow is another day.

Leaving

What a lovely day to be doing the final pack before leaving tomorrow. Sun shining & beautiful views to remember.

The last chunk of money was in my account first thing & transferred to my extremely competent solicitor Gareth without a hitch. Huge sigh of relief.

Removal men came around 8am & just got on with everything. Fortunately I was up & dressed! My cleaner Sarah came & did horrible jobs like the oven, the freezer & the fridge while I got on with vacuuming up the spiders, dust & woodlice where furniture had been moved!

Several friends came round to offer help & say "au revoir". A good excuse to stop working, have a cup of tea, & a real pleasure to see them.

Now it's 5pm & I'll stop soon to go for supper with my friend Sarah. Then a last night here after 10 eventful years. It really feels it's happening now. Oddly, I'm not sad or particularly excited. It just seems the right thing to do at this point in my life.

One door closes & another door opens.

Naming & Shaming.

The problems I described re transferring money from the Coventry Building Society & Post Office Savings earlier this week moved on at a snails pace early this morning. I phoned & spoke to real people. Both assured me that the money had in fact been transferred. Hooray I thought! Out of the woods. But no.

My money goes into some sort of financial limbo land. Seemingly no one can access it, least of all me. My money will appear in my Santander current account by 4.30 tomorrow. This is because these companies do not comply with best practice & use immediate electronic transfer. They use their own antedeluvian FPS system. Why neither of them can transfer direct to my solicitor as others have done is beyond me.

I was even told an out & out "porky". I was told that I should contact Santander because it was down to them to retrieve the money. Not true, Santander have to wait for the money to arrive. When it does, the good news is that they will respond to my transfer request & the money will go immediately to my solicitor. Thank goodness one financial institution is operating in the 21st century. But, the bad news is that it will probably be last thing tomorrow afternoon & completion is the next day.

Then there is BT. I wrote them a letter of complaint about my house move on the 12th August. I won't bore you with the detail, but basically I just terminated my contract on the 29th on the house I have sold. I have a better deal with Plusnet for Phone & Broadband in the new house. I have not had any response whatsoever. I have had to speak to 4 different people & waste well over an hour on the phone, at different times, queuing trying to resolve this. I still don't know whether I'm going to have a problem in the new house with both BT & Plusnet supposedly providing my phone line. I was told by one of the people I spoke to that it wasn't possible to cancel my contract when I move! There is no facility to fax or email BT & there is a mega problem trying to get through to them on the phone.

Finally Co-Op Insurance who do my buildings & contents. Another letter of complaint sent on the 5th August because they didn't do what they are supposed to when I exchanged contracts. What should have happened is that my current house should have been put "on risk" because my purchaser became liable for insurance cover & I became liable for the house I'm buying. I can't tell you how many variations of that I was told to do by Co - Op call centre staff - all 5 of them! No answer to my letter & no one gave me the correct information & updated the policy. I spoke to a person today who said he couldn't deal with it & there is no phone number to call for complaints. However I did discover that my new house is not insured & my current house is. All I could do is send an email to "customer feedback". So, my letter of complaint has been acknowledged, but not acted on & I have not been covered by the appropriate insurance since the beginning of August. I will be moving in in 2 days time & I probably won't be insured.
 
It's a good job I don't have any senior representative of any of these companies in front of me. I think I might well do them physical harm! This is incompetence as well as negligence. It is the worst possible customer service & it ads hugely and unnecessarily to the stress of moving house. It really shouldn't be like this & it is all down to staff training, proper protocols & sufficient people in call centres being in place. Hundreds of people move house every day. There is no excuse for the change over not to be reasonably smooth & for companies not giving their customers the right information.

Once this is sorted & I have moved & have the time I am going to refer this to the relevant ombudsmen. I don't hold out much hope that it will make very much difference though. All any customer wants is staff who know their job & do it properly. If they don't, in my experience, it's often not their fault - It's the organisation itself & the systems it operates. They should be ashamed.

Doing the right thing?

Iraq - Afghanistan - Egypt - Syria. All places where the waters are muddy & right & wrong is not black and white. All places where innocent people, including children, have suffered unbearably. All places where men with guns & worse have fought for power regardless of the consequences of their actions.

What should our response be to situations like this? How should we make the decision about the appropriate action to take?

We see graphic images & hear first hand testamony about atrocities daily. We want to uphold human rights. We want to make the perpetrators accountable for their heinous actions. We don't want to look away & let other human beings suffer grievously and do nothing to help them. We want to be good Samaritans.

Force begats more force. Guns and weapons escalate conflict increasing the human toll. "Collateral damage" - what an offensive euphemism that is. Do we have the right to interfere in another countries affairs? If we do, how successful is it? What lessons has history given us of the outcomes of similar conflicts?  I don't know the answers, but I think we need to pause & think. An emotional response is not what is needed. Boots on the ground or high altitude precision air strikes don't seem to have been particularly successful hitherto.

There needs to be condemnation. There needs to be action. We need to show support & offer aid to the weak & helpless victims. But what?

We in Britain, along with other Europeans, the Americans, Chinese & Russians have a healthy arms trade worth billions. Our countries have a vested interest in conflict. Our businesses make vast amounts of money in the aftermath of war too. How dispassionate & evenhanded are our leaders in the face of the powerful arms & business lobby?

It comes down to simple choices. Can we realistically end this sort of conflict by force? If we do does it result in lasting peace & a fair society? Do the criminal leaders get their just deserts in the aftermath?

It seems to me that it just isn't that simple. But how can we do nothing & let evil thrive?

Banks - Restrictive Practices

I am having to cash in a lot of savings accounts to pay the shortfall between the house I'm selling & the one I'm buying. I notified all the financial institutions in plenty of time that I would need the money today to transfer to my solicitors in advance of completion on the 29th August. Then I sat back & thought everything would be fine. How naive!

What has become blindingly obvious in a very stressful day is that each financial institution - bank, building society, or "other" operates according to very different rules. I have to ask why? Especially as we all know that everyone just clicks the "terms & conditions" box without reading the mind numbing & confusing very small print without reading it. Why confuse things more than is necessary? To hold on to our money for as long as possible obviously.

Two financial institutions are now in receipt of formal complaints from me - Coventry Building Society & Post Office Savings. Among the many unexpected restrictions I discovered this morning are:-

• Not taking my notification from the first letter / email I sent, but from the second which simply changed the date by a couple of days.
• Putting a stop on any transactions for 5 days from the second letter / email so the transfer can't take place today. 
• Not counting a Saturday as a working day despite the fact that the branches are open.
• Not notifying me of any of these restrictions - nor any penalty I might incur - nor what the final balance would be with interest added.
• Not transferring the money on the same day requested, but by 4.30 on the day after. In the case of this bank holiday this means Tuesday the 27th which is very close to the wire for me to get it to my solicitor. I thought this little trick had been dealt with & banks had been forced to utilise the facilities of electronic transfer & not hang on to someone else's money? Obviously not. 
• Allowing very variable amounts to be transferred in one go. In my experience today from £10,000 - £40,000 with a maximum of £80,000 in a day in some cases.

I am spitting mad. How dare these institutions act in such a cavalier fashion with my money? How can customers be expected to know all the variables of the differing accounts / institutions. How difficult is it for them to talk to each other & agree simple, universal, terms & conditions which are fair to customers? What's the point of a Financial Ombudsman if s/he doesn't enforce fair conditions on the institutions if they aren't capable of doing it themselves?

The financial sector has got away with too much for too long & they simply don't give a toss about ordinary clients. They treat savers with contempt & I for one have had enough. Apparently nothing has been learned over the last 5 years. They are still stealing very effectively.

Pro's & Con's - a single life

 PRO's

• Not being kept awake by snoring - No goodnight cuddle & no one to warm my feet.
• Being able to read / listen to radio 4 as long as I like - No one to talk over the day with.
• Having enough of the right bedclothes.

• Not having to compromise - on anything - No one to give a different perspective, new ideas.
• My books, pictures, TV programmes, music etc - No one to discuss them with.
• Eating what I want, when I want - A rubbish diet sometimes - it's not the same cooking for one.
• Along the same lines - bacon sandwiches or sausages & baked beans.
• Reading, doing the crossword, at mealtimes - Better to have someone to talk to, bicker with & make it more enjoyable & leisurely.
• Not having to do something because someone else wants to - I might have found I enjoyed it.

• Making new friends - Not easy, the world is full of couples.
• Trying doing new things - Requires effort & some courage to do it alone.
• Learning new skills - Still not brilliant with a screwdriver or a ladder!

CONS

• Possibly becoming more isolated, selfish & insular - Need to work at it not happening.
• Losing touch with couples who were friends of both of us - Fortunately not many.
• Holidays on my own - Haven't yet done it apart from going to volunteer in Nepal & there were other volunteers, so that was cheating.
• Along the same lines - outings on my own - Need to practice.
• Having to be responsible for everything that needs doing to keep the show on the road - No answer to this one. It's exhausting. Need a brain transplant!
• Only me to remember special days - There are lots of other special days to compensate.

On the whole it's OK. Life goes on, you can't get off. You need to value what you have & not hanker after what you don't have. Whatever life is now, there's always someone for whom it's worse. Finding yourself & your true voice is important.
                                    

Hoarders v Minimalists

Talking to friends, I discover that my beloved & I were not alone in being opposites in respect of keeping stuff. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with gender or age. Some of us are tidy & organised & some of us aren't - It's a fact of life.

As I plough through boxfiles of paperwork, which I did at least sort when David died, I discover that basically he never threw any paperwork away. Now I have the problem of how to dispose of sensitive information. Shredding & burning will both require me to stand for hours feeding a machine or a fire.

Having now plunged right into the depths of the shed's, (you notice the plural?), the garage, the loft & the crawl space I realise the full extent of the urge to keep "in case it come's in useful". For example, being an electrical engineer he kept really interesting things like valves, bakelite switches, weird meters, etc etc. Even the two men from TfSR / Transition Stroud, who were quite interested, said they should go to the tip!

I have to admit to feeling quite irritated at times. It isn't fun to have to sort & dispose of such a large quantity of stuff. It's really physically tiring & emotionally draining. People who live together usually take on separate roles in the partnership. You assume that the other half is doing their bit effectively. When you discover that they haven't & you have to sort everything out on your own it's hard not to feel negative.

So, my message to anyone who reads this is - sort your life out as though today will be your last day. When you have done that, live each day as though it is your last, safe in the knowledge that you have saved the person you love from as much work as possible if it really is your last day.

"Bongo Bongo Land"

It sounds fairly innocuous, like Barrie's "Never Land", something out of Kipling, or Gullivers Travels. Just when you think we have moved on as a race and learnt to not only tolerate, but value difference, something like this hits you between the eyes.

How we use language, the terms we use, how we describe people & things reveals so much about ourselves. What we say defines us because it reflects what we think deep down. Often unconsciously. Not many of us actually plan in advance what we are going to say in conversation. The words come out spontaneously in response to what someone else says & are often a window into the core of our beliefs.

Godfrey Bloom, a UKIP MEP, has revealed himself clearly & unequivocally. He has also revealed that UKIP is happy for it's members to think bigoted thoughts, but not say them in public. Especially not to the press!

To refer to aid recipients in this way is appalling on all levels. I don't see any point in enumerating them here, because I imagine most people wouldn't have any trouble working it out for themselves. Mr Bloom didn't even have the intelligence to realise what a pillock he had made of himself. His comments afterwards would have been  farcical if they weren't so stupid - "It's sad how anybody can be offended by a reference to a country that doesn't exist." "If I've offended anybody in Bongo Bongo Land I will write to their ambassador at the Court of St James."

Mr Bloom gets about £83,000 per annum as a MEP, + a daily subsistance of £265, + about £3,600, travel  + cash for staff & office expenses + a generous health care package & pension. One MEP costs an estimated £400,000 per annum.

I suggest the money would be far better spent in aid to Bongo Bongo Land. Perhaps Mr Bloom should be forced to donate. 

Little Boxes

Well, actually, quite big ones. I've started the process of packing up everything except for the fragile stuff like glass & china. I last did it in 2003, but there were two of us then. I had forgotten how completely exhausting it is. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that I'm 10 years older - My pacemaker's working overtime - hope the battery doesn't pack in!

I've already sorted through quite a lot of stuff, so hopefully what is left is central to my existence. Despite that there still seems an awful lot to pack. I find getting rid of books really hard. I read a lot, both fiction and non- fiction. If I didn't have a book to move onto when I've just finished one I would be worried. Then there are all the "arty farty" books & materials. Am I ever going to have the time to be creative again?

Moving to a much smaller house with nothing like the storage does focus the mind. I sat down with the plan last night & tried to work out where furniture should go. It's going to be difficult even though a lot of furniture has gone. I'm trying to avoid packing and then unpacking stuff that I then find I haven't got room for / don't really need. It's beginning to feel like living in a transit camp. The boxes are piling up.

The really daunting thing about all of this is remembering, all to clearly, what a nightmare it was when we moved in here. It literally took months to get sorted because there wasn't any storage at all. Just one very small wardrobe. There's a bit more in the new house, but not much.

On the plus side I don't have to compromise with anyone else on what to take & what to ditch. On the minus side there is only one pair of hands & one brain. I suppose this will be the first place I've ever had that was truly mine, and everything in it will be what I have chosen to keep. It seems a long time to wait for that sort of independence, but there is a price to pay.

Networks

Today has been very emotional. I'm leaving all my support networks behind when I move.

This morning was the first Sunday of the month, so it's coffee morning for the group of women I swim with. We are a disparate group, but we have been friends for several years and we do other stuff together as well as swim. Today was my last coffee morning before I move & they had bought me a photo & frame & my friend Margaret had made me a lovely card with a really touching sentiment inside. I had no idea they would do that & I will miss them.

Then I was invited to what I thought was a quiet lunch with my lovely neighbours opposite. Quiet it wasn't! My friend Cilla does mass catering at the drop of a hat & definitely should have been a party planner. (I'm thinking of asking the Middletons if they need help!) It was wonderful because all of my neighbours were there - All 11 of them. We get on well & they have all been really good to me since I've been on my own. There isn't a single one who I couldn't go to if I was in trouble, & I have been. I know that I could rely on any of them. In this age of selfishness & isolation that is pretty good going. Sometimes we focus too much on the negatives. I think that the majority of people are basically kind and good. But I have definitely been extremely fortunate.

I really have no idea what's in store for me after I move. It is a leap into the unknown. I really doubt that I can build up a network of such lovely friends again. But I will remember all of the ones I have now & I hope I can hang on to them.

Exchange

Finally - It's happened. I exchanged contracts this afternoon. It feels oddly flat after all the trauma over so many months. I celebrated with a mug of tea & two chocolate digestives.

So, I will exchange my rural life, for city life. It's a really big step after 34 years in the country. The one thing I won't exchange is my friends who have been really supportive through all the ups & downs of this over about 16 months. I hope I will manage to keep all of them, even if I don't see them so often.

I have had a great team behind me too - my legal man Gareth & my money man Tim. Both have really gone out of their way to help and advise. My legal man took my file home with him at the weekends when things went pear shaped & phoned me in the evenings too. Not many lawyers will do that. In the case of my money man he even coped with the fact that I can't add up & was thousands adrift in my calculations of what I needed to find. Magically the cash will appear. The team at the vendors agents, Penny & Sinclair, were brilliant too, even though I'm not really their client. It felt as if they were interested in helping me personally, not just because they would get a hefty commission. There are really nice people in the world & I'm sure they outnumber the ones who aren't nice at all. They are just quiet about it.

Being a bit OCD my next move will be to do an accurate plan & scale furniture so I know where everything should go. I'll also know if I need to get rid of anything else before I move. But that part of it all is fun.

The serious point to emerge is that I'm really glad I did this now before I had to. It has been hard from the beginning, much worse than I anticipated in my optimistic way. I realise that I probably wouldn't have been able to do it in another 10 years or if my health deteriorated. I am hopefully young enough to be able to make a new life & some new friends.

Thank God it's sorted. Couldn't have stood it for much longer.

Keeping your word

It's a really odd saying when you look at it. Keeping it where? In a box? Up your sleeve? I'm beginning to think that it is fairly meaningless today. Things used to be done by agreement between two parties who undertook to do something. Unless there was a very good, unforeseen, reason to back out it was accepted that " your word was your bond".

This morning I had an early phone call from my solicitor alerting me to an email saying the owner of the house I'm supposed to be buying can't / won't complete on the day which has been agreed for weeks - ever since the offer was accepted. I tend to be someone who says "how high?" when someone else says "Jump!" So all through this process of buying and selling I haven't delayed anything. The vendors solicitor has.

Now, when my house is sold, the removal men are booked & my possessions are disappearing around me on a daily basis, suddenly everything is up in the air. Again.

Enough is enough. I have decided to walk away if this can't be resolved. It simply isn't worth the stress & distress. I'll pay the bills, rent & start all over again. It really shouldn't be like this though. I seem to have had real problems with both my buyer & my vendor. I must have done something really bad in a previous life!

Choice

We are sentient beings - we are able to think. Therefore we can make choices. How we exercise that choice & what the issues are is very important.

At a mundane level, we chose what food to buy & how to feed ourselves, our friends, & our families. Rarely, if we are honest, do we think about the impact of those choices on other people or eco-systems. I go round Tesco's or Sainsbury's with a list of what I know I need for the coming days. I'm aware of husbandry & sustainability issues. They are at the back of my mind, so I try to avoid unsustainable fish for example. But I usually buy what my next meals require. I am lucky. I have a choice because I can afford to buy what I need & even what I fancy. It seems very wrong therefore, that there are now a substantial number of people who can't do that simple thing. Their low income robs them of choice. They have to eat unhealthy, cheap, food. Here, in the UK today. Never mind about the lack of choice, for a whole variety of reasons, in the developing world.

Similarly I can chose what I want to wear. I could, if I could be bothered, spend a fortune on new clothes, not to mention matching accessories. In fact I estimate that, apart from underwear & shoes, I could dress myself till I drop dead with what's in my wardrobe at this very minute. I am aware that cheap / child labour provides the developed world with ridiculously cheap clothing.The fashion industry has thrived on that premise for years & many of us are slaves to continuously changing fashion trends. A lot of high street fashion changes ranges every 6 - 8 weeks. There are almost continuous sales. We let them persuade us that we need to keep changing our look, our image. When & why did we suddenly need an "image"? We no longer just wear clothes to cover us, or keep warm / dry.

Even the decor of our homes has "built in obsolescence". A kitchen or bathroom is not expected to last 10 years. People change their furniture on a whim. Nothing is expected to last. There is no longer any craftsmanship left in the western world. Everything is machine made. There are probably dozens of choices for everything in your rooms now. When we are fed up we buy something to make us feel better. We can't face up to changing ourselves, so we chose to change our environment, if we can afford it.

"You don't get owt for nowt" as my dad used to say. Unless, that is, someone else is paying a price for your cheap goods. We should at least think about the choices we make.

Unto us a boy is born, king of all Creation.

I am very happy for William & Kate & all their family & friends. It is always wonderful when a healthy child is born & the mother doesn't suffer any complications. All of us who have been through the same experience know first hand what it feels like & can empathise with the joy & excitement. So we are truly delighted for them all.

But, by a quirk of fate, this child is born into a life of unimaginable wealth & social position. He will inherit & become a king, head of a commonwealth & leader of the church - if nothing changes. That's the sticking point for me. Inherited wealth means inherited power & privilege, regardless of any personal traits, gifts, expertise or experience. It simply isn't logical or fair. What we achieve in life should be a result of the natural gifts we are born with & our own effort and commitment to make something of those gifts. (Still on a biblical theme, see the parable of the talents).

I don't envy any of the royals. It isn't a life I aspire to or could tolerate. I imagine, because I can't know, they sometimes wish that they had not been born into this family. It certainly isn't "normal" family life in any sense of the word. The young royals are to be commended for their efforts to be as "normal" as possible given the constraints. There must be pluses & minuses to a priveleged life continuously led under the microscope of press & media.

Speaking of which - I am already heartily sick of the whole sorry, feeding frenzy, circus. Just how many times must we listen to the same inane, repetitive, comment & speculation, based on precious little information?  Can't someone dare to say "enough!" Can't someone credit us with a reasonable amount of intelligence & understanding? Is this news really so important in the context of world events that it has to obliterate everything else? The news media seem completely unable to see the line between informing us of the facts & spewing out garbage that simply alienates many.

Has nothing been learned from the life and death of Princess Diana - apparently not! If the press & media continue in this way there is a danger history will repeat itself. There are already too many parallells. Personally I don't believe that Jesus was the son of God, but I do believe he existed & look what happened to him!

Transition Stroud - Hawkwood College

Steve R has just been to check out all my tools for TfSR - http://www.tfsr.org It was  really great to meet someone who is so committed to the whole self reliance / eco philosophy. Like most volunteers I've met, he gives up a lot of his time but really enjoys what he does. I'm delighted that he is keen to have all the tools, shelving, workbenches etc etc my lovely husband amassed despite loathing DIY.

Dave spent huge amounts of time chopping wood for a wood burner he never got round to buying. I did though, a year after he died. I couldn't bear to think that all his effort was wasted & I benefited every winter from all that effort. So, I'm really pleased that the Transition group may also want some of the wood. It's really nice that my daughter & a good friend will benefit too.

Interestingly there is a whole network of spin offs from the TfSR ethic. So Steve runs courses for people in simple building / DIY skills at Hawkwood College. The group also do maintenance etc for each other, under his professional eye, to develop their skill base. I wish I'd known that after Dave died - it would have saved me a lot of stress. What a simple & effective idea though. I really like the whole community, self help ethos. It's a shame that positive initiatives like this don't get more publicity, while negative news often smothers the front pages.

http://www.transitionstroud.org
http://www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/news/Building_Skills_Action_Group

It really is a double whammy - win win situation.  I pass on things I can no longer use. Someone else, here or in Africa, develops skills & uses things which might have just been thrown away. Fantastic!

Shedding the Load

Today a whole load of antique "stuff" is being sold at auction. By an large it won't recoup what I paid for it because of the decline in demand for antiques. Add to that a £5 lotting fee on each lot, 15% commission to the auctioneers & charges for insurance etc & you don't get a lot back. So I just have to be pleased that I have reduced the quantity of my possessions & someone else will hopefully get pleasure from them.

Someone from Tools for Self Reliance is coming here to look at all my tools today - there are a lot. I feel pleased that they will be going to help others in more need than me. So another big reduction eventually. I've cleared out a whole load of plastic pots ready for re-cycling too. It is amazing what we hold on to in case it "comes in useful".

Two friends have bought garden ornaments & a barometer. The cash will actually be useful & it's nice to know the people & places which are their new homes. Attachment to things usually means memories of people. In the case of these items the people are no longer here, but I don't need the things to remember them. They will always be there, in the recesses of my mind. I am often reminded of them both by the oddest things, particularly my husband.

So bit by bit the process of uprooting & leaving goes on. By the time I go I will be more than ready, but it has been quite hard. I hope it's the right decision - time will tell.

GIGO - Garbage In Garbage Out

I've never come across this phrase before, but it seems very appropriate to me, particularly in relation to politics. There are so many complex issues that a modern, developed, society has to deal with - health, welfare, employment, education, justice....and on and on. The policies we vote for are important, so it seems to me the onus is on the political parties to ensure that the data they use to determine what those policies are and the data they use to verify that the policies are working is vitally important.

However frequently this appears not to be the case. Too often really questionable statistics are used. Misinformation is peddled. Glib responses hide the paucity of evidence. Politicians of all shades don't answer direct questions, but deliver irrelevant "soundbites" hoping the public / questioner will give up trying to get straight answers. Are there special classes for politicians on how to evade answering relevant questions? Are they graded on their ability to avoid answering? Is there a punishment from the "Whips" if they get it wrong? You bet.

In the fullness of time, with "Freedom of Information" most lies & deceits are revealed. Iraq for example. But by then it's too late. The harm is done. People have suffered needlessly & in some cases died. We are still nowhere near the transparency & availability of information that America now has.

I think decision makers should have to wear a simple form of lie detector when making public statements. There must be an inventor out there who could devise it. Perhaps it could sound a siren when politicians dissemble & lie? For frequent offenders perhaps a mild electric shock? We are a nation of inventors. There must be money in it for some clever entrepreneur. Currently no one seems to be really held to account for anything.