Boom, Books and Blunders

As always, I am surrounded by paperwork and in the last couple of weeks, I’ve made quite a few errors, rushing to deal with it. First there was M’s insurance, which I did on line, for the first time. I was very displeased with the last lot, and when the new documents came in, I trashed all the previous documents. A few days later, there came a letter, requesting evidence of the no claims discount. Without it, the insurance would be cancelled. I got very hot under the collar, I can tell you, but I rang up the new people, and they were excellent. Fortunately, I still had the phone number of the earlier bunch, because they are still insuring me – but not for much longer, because I really didn’t like their lack of personal service – so I was able to provide a telephone number, and the new company dealt with it. I didn’t confess to M – it’s always better to let him think I’m infallible.

My next problem was in providing a birthday present for GD3, now seven. She wanted dressing up clothes and I found a really nice site and ordered a Renaissance Princess outfit to be sent directly to the birthday girl. Last Saturday, however, the parcel turned up at my house. I was furious and telephoned the company (who weren’t there) to grumble at their mistake. Then I rushed to the post office, just missing the parcel collection and arranged for a guaranteed delivery for Tuesday. Big mistake. No-one was there when it arrived and as a signature was needed, it wasn’t left there. The Son&Heir had to cross town to pick the parcel up. If it had sent it by ordinary post, it would have been left for them in the place that their regular postman uses. Then I found the email I’d printed out from the company, in which they asked me to check the details and contact them straight away if anything was wrong. I hadn’t read it. I could avoided all that hassle with a single phone call. But at least GD3 liked the dress.

In the mean time, I have been looking for a CD player for GD2, which, it transpires, is called a Boombox. I was going into Guildford to find one of these, but I think I solved my problem with one I saw at Sainsbury’s. It’s pink, and that should appeal to GD2. I’ve also bought a laptop for M, but so far, neither of us have worked out how to use it. My brain is obviously like candy floss at the moment, because I can’t even remember the other mistakes I’ve recently made.

Since the library event, I’ve sold some more books. I had an order through the post for The Fruit of the Tree; then our monthly order from Gardners came through, and it was clear that Horsley Library had kept their promise and ordered four copies each of Darshan, Luther’s Ambassadors, Thorn in the Flesh and Tainted Tree. The Surrey Library catalogue is showing them as ‘on order’, but they do have one copy of TT in stock. Gratifying to see last week that it was both on loan and reserved by someone else. There was a further order from Goldenford's website, where all the others are also available, so it’s good to see that there’s quite a bit of interest in it. Long may it continue. There were sales of A Bottle of Plonk last week too, so a full house for me this week.