Trouble at t’Mill

I get the feeling all I do these days is pull one pair of trousers, socks and boots off, dry myself down and change them for another every five minutes!  No it’s ok I haven’t been up to anything dodgy – just this flipping never-ending rain making Trooper’s 3 walks a day a generally sodden affair – and like Orange Sorbet says if it’s not raining it’s threatening to!

Today the sun is really struggling to push through the grey cloud and mist but failing miserably – to be honest I can’t remember the last time I actually saw the beach and I drive by the flipping thing 3 days a week.

And in a totally disgusting blast of selfishness, there had better not be sun today because I have to work until 9 p.m. tonight and will be majorly pissed off if the weather turns nice and I miss the chance of actually taking the strimmer I bought MORE THAN THREE WEEKS AGO out of the box to try it out – I’m sure it’s thinking ‘what a strange house this is – they keep their garden implements on top of their kitchen worktops …..’

I had set my heart on getting a pair of these to sort out the wet feet problem:

Unfortunately when I tried on a pair yesterday, they were cutting in at the ankle so weren’t comfortable at all.  There’s a chance that would give in time but I can’t take the risk because they’re too expensive.

I almost bought a plain pair at the weekend in the most crowded outdoor-stuff shop I’ve ever seen in my life – seriously if there had been a fire in that place the elderly gentlemen shop assistants would have been toast in seconds.  Anyway once I’d actually located a human being amidst the conglomeration of artefacts which was threatening to suffocate the upstairs floor and explained my dilemma, he informed me that no none of the ordinary boots were waterproof and I’d need a pair of boots of the hiking/hillclimbing genre.  That I didn’t want but I suddenly spied the brown Doc Martens languishing on a shelf.

‘What about these?’ I asked.

‘Ohhhhh they’re expensive’ came the reply.

Well yeah I think the huge tag with £69.99 in large red permanent marker gives that away somewhat.

‘Worth it though if they do the job’ I murmured.

‘Yes’ says he.

And stood there.

I thought maybe we look really poor and he knows it’s not worth his while or something.
The display boot was unfortunately too big to try on.

‘Do you have smaller sizes in stock?’

‘Yes’ says he.

And stood there.

No I’ve no idea why I didn’t at that point say ‘Could I try a size 5 then?’ either – I think the whole episode was just getting to be too hard work – it was half past 4 and we’d been traipsing round the town for 2 and a half hours and really just wanted to get back to the car and sit down!

Maybe he’d just got too attached to all his stock – I mean some of it must have been there since the Second World War I should imagine – I could well have been looking at an original Doc Marten which would have fetched ooodles of cash on ebay and not known it.

Whatever the reason I certainly wasn’t getting a chance to get my hands on it so we left.

Back to the drawing board.  Stylish, waterproof boots – if you pass any en route let me know.

On a plus side my never-ending lists are slowly – every so slowly – decreasing – and my stress levels are reducing accordingly.  It was beginning to feel a lot like I was running around on a wheel getting nowhere but when I look back to the mini-plan I had after the course finished I’m more or less on track – June was allocated for sorting out all the stuff which had been put on hold while I dealt with coursework and assignments and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing as well as sorting stuff out for Nikki and the baby.

Incompetence continues to abound though.

The swinging crib we bought makes an unholy racket when it swings.

I’m sorry – forgive me if I’m being a trifle dense here but I thought a CRIB was a place for a baby to sleep and a swinging crib was supposed to aid that process – surely a swinging crib which sounds like the house is falling down kinda defeats the purpose just a tad??  I mean WTF??  When I mentioned it to an employee of Mothercare she said ‘oh yes some of them do that – if you spray furniture polish on the screws that’ll probably sort it out.’

And if it doesn’t?  We have to dismantle the thing ourselves and lug it back to the shop apparently.  Great.  I don’t have furniture polish so I’m hoping kitchen degreaser complete with crossed fingers has a similar effect ……

The saga with the mattress continues to delight – an e-mail to the CEO got rapid results in terms of action and I got a refund back into my account a fortnight later (strange that – it took one day to take the money out of my account but a fortnight to get it back in ……).  Thank goodness for that thought I.  This week I’ve had calls from Yodel (which of course I can’t reply to because it’s an automated number) and yesterday a card was put through the door saying they’d tried to deliver a mattress!!  I wish I’d been in – I’d have taken it without a qualm.  No doubt they’ll try again and hopefully pick a day when I’m in this time.

The letting agent for Nikki’s house she was in are playing silly buggers charging us all sorts of ridiculous stuff for things like:

(1) Paying for a professional cleaning company to come and clean the carpet (which only covered the stairs and the small first floor landing) – the whole house was cleaned the day before she moved out and the carpet was perfectly okay.

(2) Getting a professional gardner to come and cut the grass/do the garden.  Okay the grass was fair enough – it was needing cut and it was a large area – I certainly wasn’t going to do it because I had a hard time keeping up with my own grass – but there was a lawn mower in the shed – they could easily have got someone to do it for a tenner.

(3) The fridge and freezer were defrosted and apparently there was water on the kitchen floor as a result – I fail to see how we could do anything about that seeing as how she was told she had to get the keys to them the following day so couldn’t get back into the house.

(4) Tacky would be too kind a word to describe the pictures they had up on the walls when she moved in and one was missing altogether so Nikki left one of hers that she’d bought in its place.  Now they’re charging her for the missing picture!!

(5) One of the white cushions was apparently ‘marked’ – strange that considering none of them were ever used – they were put in the airing cupboard and Nikki bought her own then replaced when we left.

I could go on …… but won’t ……

Of course no mention is made of the huge damp patch which we discovered behind the settee when we moved it or the holes in the skirting boards everywhere – one particularly worrying one behind the bathroom sink pedestal which was stuffed with paper/kitchen roll and had a nasty looking stain on the floor beneath it.  Or the one in the kitchen cupboard underneath the sink – similarly stuffed with paper – or the Christmas Day debacle when the whole kitchen was flooded out due to their incompetence when they contracted a plumber to install a new washing machine and he knackered one of the kitchen sink pipes in the process.

My blood pressure rose dramatically the further down the outgoing inventory list I got with the stuff they’d marked as needing attention or had had to charge for so I just fired off an e-mail asking for a clearer explanation of all their mysterious codes they had against everything and what we were actually being charged for because basically they’re not getting £200 of my money for bugger all.

The Fraud Section of one of the banks I’m with phoned me last Monday to say there was unusual activity in my account and they wanted to check if it was okay – turned out it wasn’t – someone was taking out wads of cash and paying it into some website called ‘lendingstream’.  Thank goodness I phoned but because I couldn’t get hold of someone when I phoned the number back initially and it came up as being a hoax when I googled it, I got slightly worried and phoned my local branch.

I got someone who had overdosed on her valium pills that day I think.

I feel mean saying that now but honestly – although she was very nice she was absolutely no help whatsoever and seemed more concerned that my house number was down on their records as No.35 not No.36 and oh – ha-ha – that would mean I wouldn’t get my statements wouldn’t it – heavens and there we have another problem – well I’ll just get that sorted out straight away for you Mrs. Clark.  Oh the computer’s on a go slow today – I don’t know what’s wrong with it ha-ha – oh there we go it’s deciding it’s going to do something now – now we’ll just have that sorted out for you in a minute or two Mrs. Clark – is the sun shining up there with you today?  (She’s like 5 minutes’ drive away …..)

Somehow she just didn’t seem to have picked up that fact that someone was laughing manically in a seedy back bedroom somewhere gaily transferring stacks of my money to clear off their debts!!

Anyway FINAlLY she gave me the Fraud helpline number and I phoned and got it sorted out – they refunded the money (£700 in total in around ten or so transactions over 2 days – you’d think that would look suspicious in itself??) and will refund any charges caused – card was cancelled and new one sent out promptly so all is now okay but it was a nasty moment.

There’s more – a lot more – but I’m done you’ll be glad to know – perhaps I should do more frequent entries ……