Travelling On

rtandon27

Wow KC - that's am impressive tada list!
You may have already said, what seedlings have you started?

Karmacat

Thanks RT!  Each thing was *very* little in terms of time, I guarantee you 🤣

Seedlings I *think* I have are kale, chard, land cress and one other.  Losing the labels has been a bit of a catastrophe 😮

Managed to get out for a walk, though my knee dislikes me for it - weather was promised to be nice, but its really not, grrr  

Karmacat

Karmacat said:

For today:
- a bit of a break after all that concerted internet malarkey  
- been discussing a 'lightbox' for seedlings growing inside the house, mine are a bit leggy.  I'm going to leave them on the windowsill where they are, but also tape some reflective foil at the back of them, and find a way to dangle my single solitary foot-long growlight over them, then figure out a way to use the timer on said growlight.
- go a walk, a short *local* one, as it looks like the heavens are about to open 🤣
- clean the kitchen table and start stashing food for the Airbnb weekend.

Had a break, had a walk, now to check out the seedlings and clear the table if I can, to start collecting food to take away.

Interesting conversation after lunch: my French bank phoned me!!! I'd sent a slightly stroppy secure message this morning, their whole USP is that they're English-oriented in France (and in 2004, when I opened my account, that was a big deal).  But before I could get to my accounts this morning, they sent me a tricky questionnaire, full of technical French finance words.  English, no?  Their website name is "britline", after all 🤣 I'm not making it up about the English orientation 🤣  An Englishwoman rang me anyway, and went off on such a long, gentle apology, I asked her how we could take it forward now (I'm a terrible person 👀) and she dealt with it verbally, in English, then and there: normal stuff like what do you do nowadays, how much dosh do you have. 

And she asked if there was anything she could help with, and there was!  There's a savings account been open for a million years, which has earned about 64 cents, because it only had ten euros in it - I tried to close it, but a subsequent allocation of interest gave it more than a nil balance, so I still couldn't close it, and it wouldn't let me transfer 8 cents - that's how much there was in there.  And she did it for me, right then and there!  Unto the seventh generation, blessed be her little cotton socks 😄 avec des croissants aussi 🥐

themadvix

Ooh, that's so satisfying when you can close a niggly account like that! And how nice that you got an (overly polite) English lady on the phone - it makes a change!

rtandon27

Brilliant result with the French banking!

Karmacat

Yep, it was great!  The UK rules for declaring interest earned abroad are too nightmarish for me to contemplate learning them 👀 which is why I didn't want it.  And the money (lots of it now that the mortgage is paid off) - well, I just bring that back to the UK, and it goes into either an ISA or premium bonds.  

Haven't done a huge amount since, I've just brought in some more soil to sit here for the next lot of seedlings, so this evening I might clear the table and do the food thing.  Cuppa tea now  

badmemory

I had an account like that last year.  To close it I had to transfer in £1 then transfer out the £1.23.  Then I could close the account.  They do not like to make things easy do they?

rtandon27

OH has an account he's been trying to close for 17 years!  They refuse to do it over the phone or online, even though the balance is NIL, as he has been told to go in person to the branch he opened it in! (Other end of the country from us!)  We get a statement every year that says there has been no activity so they are going to close it and donate the tiny amount in it to charity - Ummm - there is nothing in the account! Ludicrous!!!

beanielou

£95!!!!!!!

badmemory

rtandon27 said:

OH has an account he's been trying to close for 17 years!  They refuse to do it over the phone or online, even though the balance is NIL, as he has been told to go in person to the branch he opened it in! (Other end of the country from us!)  We get a statement every year that says there has been no activity so they are going to close it and donate the tiny amount in it to charity - Ummm - there is nothing in the account! Ludicrous!!!

I too have one with nothing in that they told me I had to go in to close.  Why should I bother if they want to keep seding out paperwork that is their problem.  I have yet another with a different bank & underneath it it says that I haven't look at/printed the statement for it for some time.  Why would I there is nothing in it.  Talk about computer says!