Travelling On

Karmacat

It does slightly run in our family for later children ... and it must run in hers too, I should think All's well, is the main thing  

Unconnected, I've just seen the thing about a bee's flight, expressed very pithily: "Aerodynamically a bee's body is not made to fly; the good thing is that the bee doesn't know ".  I just love that  

Suffolk_lass

Karmacat said:

It does slightly run in our family for later children ... and it must run in hers too, I should think All's well, is the main thing  

Unconnected, I've just seen the thing about a bee's flight, expressed very pithily: "Aerodynamically a bee's body is not made to fly; the good thing is that the bee doesn't know ".  I just love that  

Ah yes, the flight of a bumble bee, one of nature's wonders!

My DH was the third child and his mother managed on her own at home (an early blizzard stopped the midwife for three days) when she weighed him she observed out loud that no baby could be over a stone at that stage and her scales must be wrong. My MiL maintained he was as she had weighed him on the Dairy (shop-counter) scales - she insisted he was just over 16lb on day 2 and their scales had just been checked. He was recorded as 12lbs (and babies were smaller back then). He was her last...

Karmacat

Wow!  SL, that's a great story - make sure to write that one down for the family tree  

Right, what do I need to do today?  Which reminds me, I just found another quote - confirming the value of our "15 minutes a day" thing.  It's a book title, its on offer on the kindle store today: "Make Today Count: the secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda".  That's so true, in terms of what you do, and of what you *don't* do.  So:

1. Carry on with transfer of money around the Virgin account.
2. Finish off cleaning and putting away the shopping.
3. Abandon the tax free drawdown from pension money - its tax free, that's the point of it, so it won't affect my tax situation.  Ta-da, job jobbed.
4. Phone call with sister this afternoon.
5. Clean bathroom - we're going for a walk tomorrow, and my contribution to peace of mind is to make sure the bathroom is sufficiently sparkly that she feels okay using it in an emergency.  It's meant that my bathroom is cleaner than it's ever been, which is no bad thing, and she still hasn't used it, of course.
6. Write a card to elderly rellie in Yorkshire, and a birth congratulations thing to London: I'd better send the little sleepsuits pronto!  I'll start it today, but it will involve buying postage online, which is an incredible faff with my printer situation, so it won't get sent off today, but I can set it up, at any rate.
7. Plugs never got planted do that today.
8. Have a bit of fun - zombie book, taped episode of Bake Off, whatever   There's only 6 actual tasks in this list

Karmacat

Right.  Closed the old Virgin account that was stumbling along at 0.35% pa, sent the money to my usual current acc.  I'll send it straight back to Virgin, the new accounts, when it arrives and is cleared, tomorrow or the day after.  I was logged in to the current acc at the same time, so I sent another £1500 to premium bonds - not sure if that'll stay there, but even if it's for 6 months, it increases the chances slightly  

Karmacat

I Hate Virgin Money So Much! 
I was just about to start doing stuff after a lazy afternoon writing for pleasure, and I got an unknown call on my mobile.  I don't answer them any more, but it was legit, Virgin Money wanting to check I wasn't some poor idiotic pensioner coerced into giving some shyster my money.  When did you open this account?  How the effing dipstick should I know?  How much did you use to  open the account?  I refer the Honourable Member to my previous answer.  He tells me to log on, the info will be on there.  But OTP means I don't know how to get the OTP code *and* stay on the line to him.  So I hung up.  Got the code.  Looked for the information.  It's not there.  Sent a complaint while I was online and logged in.  Phoned them back.  Next guy not only speaks clearly into his microphone, but also has a different set of security questions pulled from their grab bag, which I can answer easily.  .... He's going to do what I instructed them to do this morning (!!!! that's its own bag of worms) but really, if I didn't believe that all financial companies are as bad as each other, I'd abandon them, and go somewhere else, 0.15%p.a. of interest be damned.  I thanked him for his own work, he's the efficient one after all, but honestly.  I hate those questions about starting the account - going to have to start writing all that down now, though  

beanielou

Dire.Just dire.
I had hassle changing my name earlier so stuff that, closed that account.  Life is way too short to spend dealing with that crap

Cheery_Daff

Urgh, how vexing!! Glad you got it sorted but yes, how can they expect you to remember minor details from years ago that you didn't even realise you'd need to remember?? Urgh!

Karmacat

Thanks both!  So glad I'm not alone in seeing the madness.  So between that, and my skulking off for the afternoon writing for pleasure, I haven't finished my list, and I really thought I would OTOH, I *have* done:
1. Carry on with Virgin Money transfer.
3. Abandoned tax free drawdown
4. Phone call with sister.
5. Cleaning bathroom - half of that, not bad.
8. Have a  bit of fun - most definitely 
Which means I still need to:
- clean and put away the shopping
- finish cleaning the bathroom
- write 2 cards, one to elderly rellie, other to nephew and niece-in-law.
- plant the pluglets.  Sigh ... if I don't get round to them till too late, I'll scream and scream until I'm sick 

Cheery_Daff

Plenty of good stuff done there,  well done!

apple_muncher

Writing for pleasure is never a waste of time.