Harking Back

Ooooooh - I hope the utilities companies are going to be in big trouble. I turned on the news yesterday and what do you think was the first item? That people are furious that with their 'in credit' accounts they are still being expected to pay twice the direct debit - more sometimes - they were paying before. I would like to think my entry here the other day had something to do with it, or my irate phone call to the gas company, but I think not.

The trouble with phoning them is that you only ever get through to a call centre and I am daft enough to feel a bit sorry for the bloke who answers because he is only a small fish in a huge ocean, told what he can say and what he can't and he knows that "calls may be recorded for training purposes". Training....phooey! Taking it as a given that they can read and work a computer before they get the job then they have all the qualifications they need or are likely to get.

So I can only hope that someone finds that it's illegal what they are doing.

It's been snowing, not that you'd notice much now as the sun has come out and is doing its best to thaw it out. It has been freezing hard all morning and if the Siberian blast that just came through the back door is anything to go by, the sun doesn't stand a chance!

This must be the only time of year when you see winter jasmine flower PLUS a few of its leaves still on the branches. In the depths of winter there are just these glorious yellow flowers on completely bare branches.

Harking back - again - to my previous post. I have been reminded of the Co-op divi. If you shopped at the Co-op you had a share number and every time you bought something you gave your share number and on 'Divi Day' you received an amount of money commensurate with the amount you spent.

Everyone's mum was always gleeful when it was Divi Day. It was even better than gasman day! Now personally I can't remember divi day. I think mimuther kept it quiet so us kids wouldn't make any plans for it, but I do know of kids at school who had bank account started by fond grannies whose coffers were swelled by vast amounts (so we thought). We three didn't have bank accounts. Nor, come to that, did our parents, so that can't be where it went. It is quite possible though that we never actually got any because I seem to remember mimuther frequently sending us to the Co-op to get a loaf "on the divi", when the amout of your shopping would be offset against your prospective payout. We probably ended up owing THEM!

Us three kids did each have a Co-op saving stamp book. We could save our sixpences each week byu buying a savings stamp from Mrs. Across-the-Road, who was an Agent and came round every Friday. We never accrued many stamps. Certainly I didn't because I preferred to buy sweeties but I don't remember any of us cashing any stamps in, though I suppose we must have done. Unless.........maybe it's in Macy's till in New York even as we speak? Naaah.

Mimuther and Auntie fly back from New York sometime today, landing at Heathrow tomorrow morning. I look forward to seeing their photos as neither of them knows how to use a digi camera!

Keith is in charge of lunch today. Roast chicken, jacket potatoes, roasted butternut squash with garlic and green beans, all preceeded by home-made (by me) leek and potato soup and finished with vanilla mousse cream cake. I just dread to see how much washing up he can make with that little lot.

Anyway, it's almost 1pm and I am still in my dressing gown! What a slob.

Bye for now