17 June 2010 (Thursday) - Correspondence

I awoke still not feeling 100%, and being on a late start I had some time to kill. So I set about my correspondence. I have a letter rack into which I put letters (obviously!), and I tend to leave them there until no more will fit, which is when I have a look-see what I’ve got. And so this morning I thought I’d better see what was in there. A dozen letters. British Telecom invited me to take up their offer of a better broadband. That letter went in the bin, as did the old trot from WyeVale’s gardening club

The next letter was from EDF telling me that I was no longer receiving their dual fuel discount because I don’t get gas and leccie from them. I was annoyed about this – I’d spoken with EDF about this on 29 April (keeping a blog is useful!!) and they’d assured then me that they had corrected their mistake. Today they told me they had no record of our conversation of six weeks ago, and the nice lady wasted ten minutes reading out her script before ticking her box and putting things back as they were before they’d stuffed it up. Something else they’d stuffed up was my payments for the last year. They’d also sent a letter telling me they’d refunded me loads of money. Fifty quid more than the price of the tent I’m seriously considering. I predict a trip to Camping International over the next few days.

Two more letters from the people who’d given me my car loan reminding me that they still lend money if I still want to borrow the stuff. A letter from the fishing club reminding me to pay my sub. I’ve already paid that, so why did I keep the letter? And talking of clubs, there was a letter from Brighton Kite Fliers reminding me to pay my dues. I thought I’d paid that ages ago. I hadn’t. Woops!

My mobile phone people billed me for two quid for more stuff I’d texted to Twitter. I’ve stopped that lark. Then yet another letter about the snake club’s account. And finally there was a great big letter from the Aspinall foundation offering me a free day out at one of the local zoos. I was quite pleased about this, until I saw that the free day out was two weeks ago. I really should deal with my post more promptly.

Being in a “letters” frame of mind I wrote a letter of complaint to the council:

Mr Mankworthy Z Badger BA Csi FIBMS Badger Road Ashford Kent Kent Highway Services Kent County Council Invicta House County Hall Maidstone Kent ME14 1XX Dear Sir or Madam Re: On-Street Parking In Badger Road (Ashford) I wonder if I might make a suggestion… Outside my house on Badger Road is a marked parking bay. Ideally some seven cars can park there with ease. However it is rare to see seven cars parked, due to the idiosyncratic parking habits of the locals. With people continually parking against the flow of the traffic, and feeling the need to park exactly outside their house and leaving half a car’s length either side of their own car, (rather than considerately), and some vehicles seeming to be randomly abandoned rather than parked, there is a lot of valuable parking space wasted. Let me give a specific example: For the last fortnight it has only been possible to park five cars in this parking space. Here is a photo of my house – the two cars pictured have not moved in over two weeks, and the space between is too small to park in. The driver of the blue car has deliberately parked where she has because she always parks against the flow of the traffic, and so feels she needs a large space in which to perform a U-turn when she drives off. There are other parking bays in Badger Road with similar problems. I would submit that these problems arise because only the outline of the parking bay is marked. If one of your operatives could be dispatched to mark seven individual parking spaces within this parking bay then I feel that people would park in a more reasonable fashion. Yours faithfully

I wonder what response that will provoke? None, I suspect. But time will tell – it usually does.

The latest update has arrived from “My Boy ^TM”, who is on a fishing trip in southern France. In five days he’s reported back on four fish. I would remind my loyal readers of a blog entry of two days ago in which I caught over thirty fish in less than three hours. Mind you, these four fish are all carp, and three of them are over the British record weight that was current when I was his age…