Catalogue of Woes

When I was admitted to the Ridgewood back in mid-April, my watch was put in a safe (which is pretty silly because it’s a very cheap watch – I bought it off ebay for £10.50 – but it was at least accurate, being controlled by the Radio Time Signal). Presumably because it couldn’t pick up the signal in the safe, the battery depleted. When I got my watch back and came home, I looked at the data-sheet to find out how to change the battery. The instructions said to post the watch off with a £5 cheque to an address in Aldershot, which I did. A week or two went by and I began to wonder how long before I’d get the watch back. I looked at the data-sheet again and found a phone number. I rang … and learned that as the company was no longer trading, the watch and cheque would be returned to me in due course. It finally arrived on Tuesday. Vic managed to get the back off and tell me what battery I needed. I made a special trip to Boots yesterday and bought the battery, which Vic fitted last night. All should have been well – but so far it hasn’t managed to adjust to the right time.

Meanwhile …
I have a petrol strimmer to cut the grass over the allotment. It was new last year, and performed brilliantly until recently when it began to tease the grass rather than cut it. It has had a new strimmer line fitted, a new spark plug, and the air filter cleaned (not to mention fresh fuel), but still isn’t working properly. I checked the guarantee card – it has a two-year guarantee – and rang the helpline. Customer services arranged to send me a Warranty Repair Form and told me to take it to the local garden machinery repairers. The form arrived today and I’ve rung around but without success – it seems none of the local Garden Machinery repairmen deal with Spear & Jackson strimmers.

Meanwhile …
To improve security on internet banking transactions, Nationwide have issued customers with card readers. Last night I tried to do some internet banking but this particular transaction required the use of the card reader. Problem is the card reader was issued to Vic (presumably as he is the first-named account-holder on the joint account) and he rarely has any dealings with that account. He did manage to find his debit card and was confident he remembered the PIN number, but the card reader was saying it was the wrong PIN. It hadn’t occurred to me when the card reader arrived addressed to Vic, that effectively it meant internet banking was now only available to the first-named account-holder on a joint account.

Meanwhile …
I’d arranged for the annual boiler service to happen today. Frustratingly after all the rain we’ve been having, today dawned bright and sunny … and there was me stuck at home waiting for the service engineer. I rang the Nationwide and arranged that at some point today I’d be along to withdraw a large sum in cash. The receptionist politely explained that I needed to give 48 hours notice. In return I explained how I had been unable to carry out the transaction by internet banking and WOULD therefore be along to collect the money in cash today. After a brief delay she came back on the line and agreed that the money would be available, and could I bring along proof of identity.

Happily the service engineer arrived before lunch. The boiler is in an awkward place, high up on the wall in the larder. By the time he arrived, I’d removed everything from the larder, evicted all the spiders and hoovered up all the cobwebs. After he left I finished cleaning the larder, threw away one or two items that were past their sell-by dates and was feeling that sense of accomplishment, of a job well done.

I walked into town and withdrew the money from Nationwide, walked to another bank and deposited it there. The beauty of doing that is the money doesn’t vanish into that ‘black hole’ of the banking world for 4 days where it is considered to be in neither one account nor the other for the purposes of interest calculation. If I was to be denied the convenience of internet banking … In due course I plan to write to Nationwide and suggest it would have made sense to approach joint account-holders and enquire who would be responsible for internet banking if the card readers are only to be issued to one account-holder.

I walked on to Argos and explained the problem with the petrol strimmer. Having struggled to find an adequate response himself, eventually the young lad serving me called the manager over. After some further discussion, I suggested that the manager might like to replace the faulty strimmer with a new one. He consulted his catalogue and found the model is no longer available but a slightly more powerful model is selling for £10 more. He offered to swap my faulty machine for this new model if I would pay the £10 difference. Result!

Back home I got ready to go over the allotment … but by the time I was ready to go, the clouds had gathered. Oh well, at least I got to update my blog.