Get a grip woman!

trix-a-belle

Belated happy anniversary
I hope pup was ok in the van.

I feel your pain on leaking water mains, neighbour over the roads meter box has been leaking since the beginning of May, other neighbour reported it then but I don't think gave the house name (said 1st on the west side from X road) & Aw didn't ask, technician duly dispatched who looked at the 1st on the east side and found a leak (not visible from the pathway) and arranged the repair on that one & couldn't be drawn to look at the reported one that was obviously wet around the surface, they eventually looked at the correct one mid June, scheduled a repair for the end of June, cancelled it due to something else and then did eventually fix it on the 14th, & then tarmacked it on.... oh yeah, Tuesday this week when we were burning up (almost literally, 3 houses lost 2 villages away in one of the several fields that went up around here).
It had been merrily pouring away down the drain a few meters away & by the end had a good flow going. The road surface and join between the road and driveway has been well scoured. Keep ringing and moaning at them, while we were waiting for the repair they also dared to send one of those emails

Also feel your frustration on couriers, I had a delivery Mon & he very politely apologised for not getting it to me on Fri as his route had been planned by a numpty who expected him to double back on himself by a long way to deliver mine. Had one the other month cheerfully offloading fence posts behind my front hedge who would not believe me when I said they were not mine, I had to point out the address on the delivery note he was trying to give me (& clearly hadn't read) was for a house of the same name on the same road name but in a completely different postal town area that was 20 miles away.
Fingers crossed you get it this time, worth investigating if there is a house with the same name on the same road name but a different village if it happens often.

I hope your area wasn't too singed with the hot weather & any fires that sprung up

Suffolk_lass

Thank you @trix-a-belle - No fires closer than Ipswich, although I think Chantry was impacted there.

Another person posted a picture of a door on the Village FB page - it seems a delivery driver is delivering to the wrong Village. I'm hoping for the canes today or tomorrow as the runner beans are on the move.

Bees today. All ten boxes need inspecting and an objective discussion on whether there is any honey for us, and whether we should combine, shake out or otherwise reduce colonies before the end of the season, which in bee terms, is really August. If there is no rain this week the nectar flow will end and they will be starting their winter preparations.

We have wasps too. Hopeful ones around hives, plus at least one thatch nest that is pretty active. Apart from pestery ones in the garden they are not doing us harm so hope we can leave them to wither in the autumn.

Our Meribelle cherry-plums are all picked (except half a dozen or so) and we have halved, stoned and bottled these (I started, did about a third, then DH took over as pup was yipping and begging and it was only just 06.00!) The light preserving syrup is in the jar and they are in a low oven as I type.

Suffolk_lass

Seriously unimpressed by this company. It is the sixth day since they said they were treating my delivery as a priority and nothing. So I have messaged again. In the meantime I will need to get some (8 foot bamboo canes) from elsewhere as the runner beans are all over the ground.

In the meantime Anglian Water; the traffic controls are in this morning, ready to dig up the road and find it. They need to fix the main before the water tower supply can be turned back on (22 months it has been out of service now) because if the increased pressure is applied to the main we may end up with a fountain or a sink hole! They rang to confirm the tower is supposed to be back this weekend so I asked about the impact on the main and the Tier 2 support lady who has been liaising with me has made sure the left and right hands know what is happening. Yesterday, the scheduled repair slot was 2.30-3.30pm a bloke in a non-water company van sat and watched the road for over 30 minutes before leaving, having done nothing. Good grief.

We remain in the dead zone financially for the month, with neither of us due to be paid our occupational pensions before the weekend (DH might, as his is the 1st mine is the 4th). I might just jiggle £60 from the current to the bills account as the plumber and window cleaner both need paying and there isn't enough there without the account going into the agreed overdraft if I don't. The last of my 3.5% Skipton BS regular saver payments went on the 20th so that will give a little boost to the EF when it matures next month

Suffolk_lass

1st of August. A good day to start eating the right food. Not going to diet as such but Mediterranean diet for the next two months. Still going to have dressings on salad and possibly the occasional potato or lump of bread but I want to shift some weight. Not going to set a target, just see where it goes

foxgloves

We made a similar decision a couple of weeks ago, @Suffolk_lass & I must say I'm already feeling much better for it - not just being a few lbs lighter already, but prioritising healthy fresh food, inc our homegrown produce. We're using Judith Wills' Traffic Lights plan as it's usually quite effective at fighting the flab. Also, as all the green-listed (free food) is so healthy, it does help rebalance our overall intake.
F

Suffolk_lass

Cannot get into NS&I this morning as they have changed the working system to a 2-part authentication that hangs between password and prompt for code. Both accounts the same. Not impressed. Now through that bit and it is attempting to authenticate the browser on my old Mac. Not hopeful.

Every time they update things it is a disaster. A quick look back at their help twitter feed. There's nothing like learning from your mistakes, and this is nothing like learning from their mistakes. It is a crock, it really is.

foxgloves

Mine worked ok when I last logged in, @Suffolk_lass It was the first time I'd logged in since the new authentication code system but there wasn't a problem..,......unlike trying to log into my bank yesterday which involved a long phone queue. They did suggest something to get around the problem but couldn't explain why it should suddenly have become an issue. As banks have less & less of a presence on the high street now, reliable online banking is a must. Following closure of our local branch, a trip to the nearest actual bank would involve a 34 mile round trip & astronomical city centre parking.
Hope you are able to get it sorted out.
F

Suffolk_lass

Thanks @foxgloves. I did tweet them and they tweeted back to say they had put in a queue. I would say their infrastructure computing lead needs a bit more clout, they really need to be able to flex their resources - and which dimwit thinks going live on 1st August is a good idea? School holidays so half your tech support people are on holiday (or alienated because you stopped all leave) and having forced 90% of bond-holders to move over to online accounts, of course they all want to log in on the morning of 2nd to check winnings and not wait for the email which is always a day later (another issue!). Good grief.

I charged DH with getting in to his and eventually got in to mine. Each of us won £25 this month

greent

If you have the prize winning app on your phone sl it is super quick and easy to check - no real logging in as such after the initial time and all it displays is whether you've won or not and how much (eg 2 x £25) and you can see any winnings for the previous 6 months. You can add multiple bond holders to it - so I check on there for 5 of us each month - takes me less than 2 minutes to do all 5. 

Suffolk_lass

This month is going to be really really tight financially. We are going cold turkey on big river company too. One more delivery (for the van) is outstanding and pet food is the only other item we might need. I did spot a catering pack of the laundry detergent I like (130 washes - although I get 200 out of it) and may yet sneak that is the basket. If I portioned it from the pack it is 3p a wash more expensive than the SM but it is no longer available in the SM and I use less than they say.

We got a refund for the bamboo canes after a patronising message from the seller telling me to put a space in my own postcode (!) and they sent a second picture of a gate with our house name on (we don't have a gate). The Evri reference they sent us did not recognise our postcode and the consignment tracking still showed it in their depot, a week after it arrived there. DH sent them a message pointing out that they had a picture of our house, they had the postcode and the What3Words and clearly there was no hope given their delivery agent had once again elected to deliver to the wrong village. The RM postman said Evri have undercut RM and just are not coping with the extra business.

The water main has also been fixed. It involved a lot of shenanigans I can't go into but it is done, the road is open, the traffic management equipment has (now) been collected and we are ready for the local supply to resume (it is being pumped in from across the district). That will probably be the end of the month