Travelling On

beanielou

Suffolk_lass said:

beanielou said:

Suffolk_lass said:

It was my first year at College - I applied last minute when I was made redundant - post clearing I just rang and asked, went in, demonstrated my sporting prowess (🧑‍🎓🏃‍♀️💃🥾) across a number of activities and they said yes (the most hilarious was doing a handstand, which I had never done - ever - in front of a GB gymnastics coach - I digress) - applied for my grant and then my bed broke so I went into Nit-Wits and explained and they advanced an overdraft.

Bought the bed, three weeks later went in to get cash and was asked to go in to an interview room where they locked me in and called for the manager who threatened to call the police. Fortunately I was able to describe the member of staff who had advanced the OD and they had the good grace to confirm and admit they had omitted to record it properly (but they had got their notes) - so they let me go.

A friend reported it to the local paper and the next thing was my Mum telling me about a student locked in a bank interview room and do be careful dear...

Blimey norah!!

It was 1982 so I have (now finally) let it go (more of a dining out story now - if I ever get to dine out) but I'll take @shangaijimmy's advice on whether this makes them a zombie company for me. The bank account I opened with TSB in the nearest town will have to move as the monthly payment stops next month and then the branch is closing this June. I've just read that HSBC are closing the branch where DS lives in June too so we should both consider where a physical branch is. There is a Nit Wits branch on an industrial estate less than 10 miles away

2 years ago we had 4 banks where I live & come March there will be none.
So I wont have a physical branch near me at all.

Karmacat

So there's quite a key thing happening  it does feel good to have sorted it out - though there's half a dozen tiny little keys, only about a centimetre long, and one set only half that, I have no idea what they open.  I'll try my mother's jewellery box, which I have, other than that I really have no idea.  I'm just glad to have found the key to the new double glazing!

Beanie - all 4 banks closing is horrendous!  I have no reason to go regularly, but when I need it, I actually do need it.  Troubling.

Suffolk_lass

Karmacat said:

So there's quite a key thing happening  it does feel good to have sorted it out - though there's half a dozen tiny little keys, only about a centimetre long, and one set only half that, I have no idea what they open.  I'll try my mother's jewellery box, which I have, other than that I really have no idea.  I'm just glad to have found the key to the new double glazing!

Beanie - all 4 banks closing is horrendous!  I have no reason to go regularly, but when I need it, I actually do need it.  Troubling.

Maybe they are for the little padlocks that used to come with travel bags. I always valued padlocks (maybe because I shared a room with my Sis as a child) and so, long after bags split, the padlock would reside with me. Sometimes I still find a padlock and think "where's the key?" and sometimes I find some keys and think "where's the padlock?" - sounds like the great philosopher (WTP) - "Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit!"

All the banks want you to take their mobile banking app but I don't want to. I have a perfectly good desktop and like doing my admin first thing in the morning, while my brain still works. Especially after that episode where I transferred my season ticket loan into someone else's account because our savings account had another sort code and I had never noticed. Scarred for life!

themadvix

We had a key sort out the other day - is that the level of life admin we’re all getting around to now? - turned up a set of car keys that we can’t work out which car they are for, or if we even own it anymore.... suspicion is that they are for a wreck we purchased (and then got rid of) before we bought the house that was used to fix my Micra.

Karmacat

I found a combination padlock I'm certainly going to keep them for now, because it's easy enough - the keys to the doors that have been changed, they're in the tray "to be recycled".  Just checked my household recycling, and there's no mention of them, grrr.  I'll have to find out: there's 10 or so, it's worth doing.  And I think it *is* the life admin we're reduced to, sadly but it's good not to have this stuff around our homes - and if it results in more recycled metal, then that's a good thing!

SL, I completely agree with you about the banking app, I won't get them either - my phone is an extremely portable object that I regularly take outside my house, and it's security is kind of simple, just a little PIN - I'd rather do it on my laptop, like you, with a page big enough for me to see the layout *around* what I'm typing in. 

Sending things to the wrong people is my nightmare - though I always send a tiny amount first, and this "confirmation" thing they've introduced recently is helpful.  They couldn't confirm NS&I though - and NS&I tell you that they can't, which is really odd.  However, my first big payment of premium bonds has now reached the right space, so I'll set the next lot up for Monday.

Very cold here, the rec ground still has frost, I'm not going to dig in the garden - green bin is due on Tuesday, though, so I'll try to find things I can cut back as part of the long term effort.

Karmacat

Mira Furlan
Mira Furlan: Babylon 5 and Lost actress dies at 65 - BBC News
Just found this.  She was lovely, absolutely lovely.  I met her in the mid1990s, at a convention in Blackpool - she was thrilled that we liked her, and she used that space to spread understanding and thoughtfulness.  She'd emigrated to the US once the Yugoslav civil war started.  I remember her talking about going to an ordinary American supermarket and being completely paralysed by the level of choice, and *wondering* about that choice.  The tributes to her on Twitter may seem overblown, but they're not, not this time.

Karmacat

Well, I pulled myself together!  
1. transferred the next premium bond purchase, for Monday.
2. precious little else until I went out to the garden - lots of scraps of ivy I could dispose of, and I actually dug up two dead bramble roots, killed off by the fence work, hurray.  But my soil!  My poor soil!  I've always said you could cut it with a knife and call it a brick, and it's now so compacted by the workmen walking all over it while fence-building, it's going to take a while.  I put two bucketsfuls of dead leaves and roots into the green bin, and did some soil aeration too, most of the side return border, and a bit in front of the kitchen window. 

I'm going to use the vandalised tops of the gateposts from the front, to slide underneath the fence panels - that will stop soil accumulating near the panels themselves, and stop it drifting down the hill to next door's garden.  The posts are set in concrete, I'll put some of the slate chips around them.  After that comes the raised beds.

Karmacat

One piece of worthwhile financial admin today: the cahoot money from the once-dormant account has arrived in my current account!  It's £228 and pennies, and I realised after the whole "don't end up paying tax next year" that it was important to get this done *this* tax year, when I'm only being paid 3 months of state pension.   

Job jobbed.  I also downloaded a form from the NHS about obtaining the medical records of a deceased person - this is for genealogy.  My grandfather lost his sight in two separate incidents - one a motorbike crash, the other an operation that went wrong - and since I'm now including him in the book I'll end up writing, I want to get my mitts on these, if I possibly can.  We'll see, even a partial would be good.

greent

Oooh - I didn't know you could get a deceased person's medical records..... there is one member of my family that I would rather like that info on... must go and have a see if I can find that form on the NHS site....

Karmacat

I'm not sure they're going to agree to my request, greent - family history isn't enough, I don't think (I suppose they'd be inundated - though if they charged a tenner, like they do for a will, and the person had been dead for more then 50 years, you'd think it would be okay).  Anyway, I'll try to push that my dad was his father's executor, and I'm my dad's daughter, so .... we'll see.  I won't be doing it tomorrow, but I'll let you know when I do.

I've managed to get a little bit more done today: shopping that was hanging around after being washed and dried has been put away, and mindful of the giki zero informatinon, I used the microwave to cook my tea - quorn, frozen veg and sweet potato, plus tomato puree and a drizzle of avocado oil.

The giki stuff is interesting - I do a lot, and I've certainly achieved more than a ton in savings just by listing what I'm doing.  BUT - haven't done anything to do with water yet, and I haven't allowed anything for travel on public transport this year, or holidays - and usually, I'd be having two holidays and a couple of trips on public transport every week.  Though I won't be for this year, obviously.  So I'll have to keep an eye on that - but what it *does* do is highlight actions I can take - switching providers, picking up local litter, maintaining the fridge, draughtproofing (one draft at my living room window), its a good series of steps.