Sky's the Limit

Oh dear. Half a pack of crisps and TWO liqueur chocolates at the weekend and two chocolate brownies yesterday. V. Bad.

Spoke on the phone to my son at the weekend – about bicycles. I tried to avoid it, because I am not at all interested in cycling, but this is a gene inherited from his father. M in fact cycled back from the station the other day, before the storms. He tells me he is much happier with his bike now he has sawn off the back gears. He cycles along the pavement, now but at such a slow speed, he is in no danger of knocking over old ladies. My son was worried about M using this old contraption, but reassured himself in the end, that as M never remembers to lock things up, at least it was guaranteed not to get stolen.

I am missing not hearing from Virtual Tales (www.virtualtales.com) . I assume that all is well, and that publication is not far off, but without the proofs flying backwards and forwards to give me a push, I have returned to my normal unfocused state. Also my desk is covered with January nasties – telephone bill, electricity, gas, insurance and the VATman’s billet doux, too. Depressing to see that my friends and family reduction was under a pound. That’s partly, though, because I communicate mainly by email, and also BT gives us very cheap evening and weekend calls, anyway.

Today, Monday, I have just spent more than half an hour on a telephone call to Sky. I don’t recommend it. It stems from the fact that my bike-loving son gave M a birthday present of a year’s subscription to Sky in June last year. This lump sum was too much for their little brains to take in and we had no end of hassle with them in the first month after set up. Having got over that, I couldn’t bear to speak to them, even though I found their first statement incomprehensible. I imagined that all would become clear to me as time went on. In fact what became clear was that what should have been a credit as a result of losing time at the beginning had been added on instead of deducted, and in addition to that they had charged us for the same month twice. My long phone call (most of which was spent listening to their terrible music and adverts for themselves) has finally resulted in a credit of £26.50. The question is though, how much did the phone call cost?

We were out to lunch yesterday with friends in a rather modern restaurant at the top of Guildford. A delightful Spanish girl served us and told us she quite liked Guildford because it wasn’t too cold. Alas, it feels decidedly chilly today and the temperature is due to take a dive, I think. My poor little crocuses which surprised me by making an early appearance will not survive, I fear. And tomorrow, we unfortunately have to go to Bushey, Herts. to the funeral of an old friend, an event which will not be enhanced by cold and rain.

Just got back from a trip to the bank. Really wintry weather out there; for the first time for several weeks, I had to wear my hat.