I have had to give up my daily exercise for weeks now due to being a worn out old frump plus having had an infection.
The move from hell has finished, we only moved ten miles but it might as well as been across several continents with the fuss it brought on. Each time we came to sign contracts it disappeared again, driving our buyers mad and our sellers even madder. The removal company who had started rather an epic job, with lots of sighing and sucking through teeth with pencils wedged in toothy gaps, had to suddenly stop. I might add we in turn were being pushed to start the moving process by our local estate agents.
We had been advised by a particularly militant young specimen who appeared to be aged around 13, with the listening skills of an ATOS assistant, to follow his instructions exactly. He gave us definite advice to get going with a certain date, in terms of contract signing and moving. He unfortunately kept calling me Mrs so and so and speaking with vacuous authority on what we needed to be done. I found out by default that he was in fact the new branch manager, taking over from a large swathe of staff - who had had the sense to leave the area with with the speed and style of a moonlight flit. Nobody of course informed me that my emails and messages were going nowhere. Once again the contract slipped, the removal company could no longer do it, but with good spirit handed it on to a friend of theirs who helped with further chaos. The spotty oik, oops I mean estate agent retreated to a safe distance to put his fingerless gloves on to get ready to count his soon to be collected commission for doing precisely nothing other than annoy me for weeks and avoid my venomous sabre toothed antics.
The cats were blissfully unaware of how their territory was changing, their convenient mental state brought about with the aid of some special catty pheromone pumps, which I purchased to indicate to them that they had not moved anywhere and the whole thing was imagined. I moved house for precisely two hours, and then caught a train to London with my youngest to enable him to do his Year 11 work experience. This has been set up months in advance as of course we were due to move, April, May, June, July, August and of course finally September. I did have e nice 6 days with my eldest son in London and saw lots of friends but i was mainly in bed due to the exhaustion of it all. My youngest got lots of rock and roll experience and was able to be present as some rather soon to be famous tracks were laid down in a recording studio. I was banned from the area and kept myself amused with long lunches with old friends.
Once in the new house the promised internet and phone was not there, we had been sold a package on that promise. My husband was infuriated as his business had to run from several locations at once instead of from home. In fact they phoned us on our mobiles to explain it would take another two weeks, we won't mention names but Br....sh T.....m became a couple of spat out swear words along with the Estate Agent's name. Another company offered to help called hmmmm Fussnet. We said we would have a look at what they were offering compared to the other bunch of prats. We looked over the contract and said no and my husband and I continued to play good cop bad cop and finished off company No.! who then days later after being savaged on line by yours truly, provided us with a vastly reduced package and got us on line.
Mid phone call one week the whole service disappeared only for us to find out that Fussnet despite our lack of agreement had literally pirated the line rendering us with nothing at all as each service blocked each other. Fussnet could not undo the service as technically we did not exist as customers and did not have an account. All our phone calls and in particular mine are apparently going to be used as training exercises for staff both with company number one and Fussnet. To cut a long story short by the time I had finished with Media Centres attached to both companies, I did end up with 18 months at 3 quid a month... but really we could have done without it. They all seemed not keen to go on Watchdog with me, what spoilsports.
After breathing a sign of relief and getting everybody on line, including part time teenagers at school who for health reasons need the net, when not at school, the next crisis loomed with rather a foul energy company, for the fourth time in 18 months. wishing to charge me for energy never used, as we had never been a customers, with the added delights of threats from bailiffs thrown in. A day of arguing with them and offering to appear on Rogue Traders saw them off with some timely compensation, but between you and I, I am sick of them all. I am in the third week of infections and tired so to have to tell so many company executives off is not good sport! The only solace is knowing that at board level they will all have to listen to recordings of me in their nice plush offices.
He as in my lovely man, is beginning to calm down as I am... keys to top boxes on cars disappeared as did trousers containing them, for a number of weeks none of us had any belts and shoes or coats, as to make matters worse we have now started a giant build on the house, two loft conversions, and every room being decorated at the same time. Tomorrow a man on stilts is arriving to plaster the ceilings, he is one week early and the build is two weeks late, this will coincide with a large furniture delivery and the rest of our stuff from storage with nowhere to move anything. I am making endless dinners and lunches and opening lots of wine, and also trying to remember in the chaos to do diaries for Dr BDP, in all the chaos I have managed to find my blood pressure machine, a thermometer and spare batteries, but I have managed to drain a cup of tea over my lap top which has infuriated me beyond measure. A man with very old fashioned sideburns and beard is apparently wishing to rescue me regarding this. No doubt he will turn up at the height of our chaos and probably run a mile.
Meanwhile I have done lots of gliding about in the neighbourhood and met a very nice lady down the road who had a very noisy party, I was delighted and relieved, to hear sounds of fun late a night She came around to apologize the next morning, and I announced how pleased I was as I had not yet unpacked two full sized drum kits. She also warned me that one particular couple in the neighbourhood liked to cut their lawn with nail scissors and were not keen on anything at all. Much to my amusement they have the same names as my last neighbours who gave off a similar half dead and sour disposition, I did check it was not them again, it is not and I beam at the new version almost daily accompanied by my husbands over enthusiastic waving, which causes them to rush straight back into their own house just as I planned.
Despite all of this and journeys to seek urgent medical care for myself and daughter many things are keeping me amused. Dithers is giving me a blow by blow account almost daily of her dating events which are hilarious and causing her to have very very late nights and lots of exciting dinners where I must say she seems to be the dessert, I have been very amused at her goings on, and intend to get her to come and stay as soon as possible to make sure she has not missed telling me anything.
Now we are half installed in the new house, more rubbish is coming to light, the previous owners were most concerned that we carried on feeding the birds, my man responded by loading up a feeder with some hideously vile gluten free crackers I had bought. They were like eating polystyrene crossed with elastic bands and I took an infuriated dislike to them and kicked the whole lot out of the new back door, as they had ruined the Italian late night cheese on top. Once he had filled the birds facilities with awful biscuits,, our garden remained empty of any birds until they were removed two weeks later. I am tempted to write a customer review!
He is also very pleased that we live nearer to his favourite German supermarket and as predicted went rushing off there to purchase their new brand of clothing. He arrived back brandishing with euphoric joy, three suspiciously awful black t shirts for men, marked medium - three for three pounds. On opening the packet the most dreadful garments appeared, long skinny shirts which certainly would not fit a man, but looked great as rather unstylish mini dresses on both my teenagers. We made him model one. and we all collectively collapsed and howled with laughter, apparently they will be useful under vests. His brother came over for dinner and retold a well known story about traveling around Portugal and how my husband had gone through a phase of appearing not to mind wearing ladies capped sleeved t shirts which had apparently prevented either of them ever meeting any women to chat up.
I am wondering if I should attend the TUK event in disguise due to the amount of nonsense produced by myself on line, but that may well be another story.
Mary F
Sign it, share it, Facebook it, drone on about it, clobber your neighbours with it, press gang your relatives with it, glue it to your GP surgery's front door, (ahem perhaps not), get some more signatures etc, witter drone, fuss etc: epetitions.direct.gov.uk/pe...