(Well, almost) (I mean, aside from wars and famine) (and poverty…) (edited to add: and also possibly Probate…but don’t hold your breath)
The past few days I’ve woken up in the mornings with a feeling that all’s well in the world. For too long everywhere has felt like chaos. But right now, things feel calm. I hope it’s a sign of more to come.
England managed to get through to the semi-finals on Saturday. I don’t understand why our national football team seems physically unable to win a normal game of football playing normal football. When they do succeed, it’s usually on penalties or in extra time. They did really well with the penalties on Saturday, but I think for everyone’s sanity, the fans would really like it if they could win against the Netherlands in a normal fashion.
Not that they’ve ever done very well against the Netherlands… but we live in hope.
On Sunday there was more good news from Europe when it looked like the far right was going to be defeated in France. On Monday morning, it was confirmed. No single party over there has sufficient or absolute majority to start a government. They may have a hung parliament, but at least the far right were defeated. I hope the left are able to form a coalition.
If this positive surge can just keep going for a few more months…
We had to do the shopping on Saturday and everything else in time to get back for that quarter-final game against Switzerland, so that tied up the day. On Sunday we went out in the campervan to charge the battery and ended up at the National Trust’s Clumber Park, where we bumped into daughter and family. That was a nice bonus.
We had to rush back again, though, because we had a table booked at a nice little pub/restaurant for 6pm. The poet decided he didn’t want to cook on Sunday, so he booked us a table out instead. It was when we got back from there that we first saw the news coming out of France.
My pre-breakfast job on Monday was feeding the birds. We have an extra tray and water bowl now for the disabled magpie, and we have a new window feeder for the birds on the office window. The window feeder is supposed to be for the small birds, but the starlings and the magpies have worked out how to hang from it and stick their heads in. I also had 2 baby starlings in there yesterday morning.
My first task of the day was Week 3 of the advanced depth workshop. In my first Pomodoro, I hung out a single washload. I’m aiming at getting one load washed, dried and put away in a single day. But of course, some of that depends on the weather. We can dry clothes indoors, and we do have a dehumidifier that has a drying setting to help. But it can still take a couple of days for some items to dry fully.
Next task was to post yesterday’s blog post as I hadn’t got around to it on Friday. I also finished my schedule for this week, and transferred it to the diary. In my next break after that, I emptied the dishwasher. Then I started today’s blog post.
I finished all of the morning’s jobs and chores around 30 minutes before my dinner break. And I still had a hot cup of tea to drink. Oh, the dilemma! So I put in a call to our Probate team… Ho, ho, ho. As usual, the front-line member of staff I spoke to was great. Polite, respectful, empathetic, understanding. He promised to escalate things, but in the next breath said there was only so much he could do.
Well, yes. Clearly. There’s only so much any of them can do, it seems. But he put my mind at rest for yesterday at least.
I chose the image for today’s post and saved the caption. Then I broke for an early dinner.
I was about to start the afternoon’s work when an email came in from our Probate people, attaching the final accounts for signing off. Yay…Oh, hang on, wait for it…First of all, they had our mother’s date of death wrong. Then, they’d deducted inheritance tax when we’d already been advised, by them, by HMRC, by Probate, that we weren’t liable for inheritance tax.
After several phone conversations with my sister, I sent back an email explaining why we couldn’t sign the accounts off as correct, to which I received confirmation that we weren’t liable for inheritance tax, that there was an error in the formula, and that the accounts had been amended. Only there were no amended accounts attached…
Honestly, you couldn’t make this up.
I penned a new 1-star review, for which I had to first delete my previous 1-star review and submit it again, with the original 1-star review pasted at the bottom. And then poof! The poet called to say he was on his way home from work.
WHERE DID THE AFTERNOON GO?
The washing was dry by now, so I brought it in, folded it up, and put it away. Washed, dried and put away all in one day. Result. I returned to my desk just as the poet arrived home. At about the same time the amended Probate accounts landed. I’ll have a better look at those today.
It’s so frustrating for you that it is still all going on. They need to get their act together.
The formal complaint has been lodged.