Good morning and welcome to March – surely we can’t have too much more of this cold and very breezy weather to endure, can we? It’s nearly Spring, isn’t it? Please? We’ve had a few good days this week, fresh with bright, bright, bright blue skies as well as some fairly miserable days with cold, freezing Arctic winds and lashings of rain. I guess it’s true – variety being the spice of life, I mean.
We had a fun day out on Wednesday when we made our way down to Cholsey in Oxfordshire to have lunch with our favourite school, The Treehouse. This is the school, you will remember, which was founded by a friend to offer an alternative approach to learning, one in which the children actually matter. As they receive no funding from the Government and charge no fees, they constantly have to raise money and lunch on Wednesday was one of their latest initiatives – Food for Thought.
It’s essentially a “pop-up” restaurant where the kids prepare and cook the lunch for local people. All the food is locally sourced and the lunch is prepared and served by the children at The Partridge Inn in Wallingford. The Partridge kindly lends the school their kitchen and a bit of oversight and the rest of it is down to the kids.
Wednesday’s offering was Cottage Pie (beef or vegetarian option) and gooey-chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Orders were taken and the meal was served by the kids who even had learnt the art of coming back to your table after five or ten minutes to ask if everything was to your satisfaction. The lunch was delicious and the children were excellent in their interactions with the adults who attended. If you are in the neighbourhood, check the dates of the next opportunity on the school web site.
I ran across an interesting article on the BBC web site on Monday – more than two-thirds of NHS Trust and Health Boards in the UK are actively trying to recruit from abroad as they struggle to cope with a shortage of qualified staff – tens of thousands of nursing and doctor posts are vacant. What makes it intriguing, of course, is the “Outers” in the European Union referendum want to stop all these smelly foreigners coming to the UK and “stealing” our jobs, women, housing, money, etc. Also, although our foreign readers may not be aware, the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is currently trying to force through a new junior doctor’s contract to extend the provision of the NHS more fully (throughout the week and, especially, at weekends). However, he is trying to do so without employing any extra staff or devoting any additional resources. It seems to me that this doesn’t quite add up when the NHS is already suffering a staff shortage. Still, one could never accuse this government of being made up of Rocket Scientists.
Long story for which I apologise in advance:
I had an interesting discussion with our electricity supplier the other day. Soon after we moved into Framington House in August, I was in touch with our supplier with all the changed details – address, phone number, the fact that there was no gas, etc. As it happens, the previous owners had used the same electricity supplier so they had all the details of the house.
Our latest bill arrived the other day and I glanced at the details, as one does. Since this bill was estimated (again), I quickly went downstairs to grab the meter reading and tried to submit it online. Unfortunately, the site kept demanding the reading from a second meter which we don’t have. Hmm. Then I noticed that my account name was “Mr G Stragnell and Mr Greg Stragnell” (from when we had both gas and electricity, I am guessing). So, I found the option to change the billing name and set about trying to do so. It’s not, however, until you get to the end of the process that the system kindly informs you that “It is not possible to change your billing name online.” Yep. They offer an online option to change the billing name but it’s not actually possible to do so.
Eventually, I managed to find the very well hidden telephone number and, after fifteen minutes of soothing music, finally got to speak with an operator who (allegedly) changed the billing name on our account. (I say allegedly because four days later the online account details still show the original information – oh well). As well as asking him to change the billing name, I offered to provide him with our actual meter readings which I did. He too asked for the readings from the second meter, which I explained we don’t have. Apparently, their records were showing that Framington House had two electricity meters, one for normal usage and one for night-time usage which is a bit cheaper. The previous owners, many years ago, had night-time storage heaters and this was why there were, once upon a time, two meters. When I explained that there were no storage heaters at the property any more, he went away to investigate. Ten minutes later he came back to tell me that “Yes” I was right and, in fact, the supplier had removed the second meter six years ago. Nevertheless, they continued to provide an estimated reading of our night-time usage ever since we moved in. It probably won’t surprise you, therefore, that our revised current electricity bill shows a considerable credit as we have been over-paying every month since we moved in. I suggested that perhaps we should reduce our monthly payments somewhat and the agent agreed and promised to investigate and get back to me. Four days later we are still waiting but the refund will be nice.
You couldn’t make it up.
Finally, it’s Mothering Sunday in the UK so let me send warmest and heartiest greetings and solicitations to all the mothers amongst you but especially to my splendid mother. Hope I remember Mother’s Day when it rolls around!
Love to you all,
Greg