Into August
Posted: Wed 5 August, 2015 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, D4D™, Domestic, Driving, Finances, Getting Organised, Health, Introspective, Looking Back, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Somehow, we’re into August already. The year’s racing by (as usual) and here we are. August.
August is a funny (as in ‘odd’, not as in ‘ho ho’) month for me – for some reason it’s always been rather more eventful than others. It seems to be generally a month of change for me, in ways both negative and positive.
It’s definitely the month I get twitchy about, more than any other. I’m sure that’s because my parents first pointed out what a consistently change-laden month it was (which may have also gone some way to making it a bit more self-fulfilling) but I try to not focus on it. By that, I mean that I don’t consciously go “oh, I’ll do that in August”. August just seems to happen.
As examples…
- D4D™ got started in August. Not intentionally (well obviously it got started intentionally) in August – that was just when everything came together for it to happen
- My bankruptcy was in August. Again, that’s just when it came about.
- I finally passed my driving test in August.
- I’ve had *lots* of job changes in August, contracts ending and so on.
This time round, it looks (so far) like things will be a lot calmer.
I was a bit twitchy, as my current work contract had an end date next week – and even though I was 99% sure it would extend again, there’s always that “But it’s August, and thus could bite me on the bum” nagging doubt. However, it’s been confirmed this week that it’ll extend again, through to October (which will mean I’ve been doing this one for a year) so that’s all good.
To the best of my knowledge I’ll be staying in the current house for at least another year. That’s the plan (and renewal isn’t ’til November, so not a concern) and I see no current reason to change it.
There’s currently nothing else of major import and change looking like it’ll happen. I’ve got stuff planned for the month, but nothing change-laden. All the same, during August I’ll be…
- Doing a 10Km sponsored walk for Marie Curie
- Seeing Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet (a happy surprise instance, brought about by a friend of a friend not being able to go)
- Possibly another London visit, or alternative Day Trip
- Sorting out (renewing) car insurance again
And there’s a bundle of other stuff as well, alongside the weekly working normality.
So with any luck, this August won’t be too eventful and change-laden. We’ll see.
Ker-Fut 2 – Getting to the Garage
Posted: Mon 6 July, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Car Repairs, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Insurance, Milton Keynes, People Leave a comment »F0llowing on from Friday’s car issues, it’s been a semi-eventful weekend.
When I got home on Friday, my first job was sorting out a hire car for the coming week (possibly two) as I’m all over the place. That got sorted relatively easily – one place was closed, and I’d have had to call their Glasgow office to try and find out what was available (a ridiculous state of affairs, and frankly, fuck that) and the second one, while closed, enabled me to book a car to be collected the following morning, in a dead easy process.
And then it was a small case of hunting for the necessary identity documents. Driving licence (and the new necessary code from DVLA for the online driving record – needed since the paper part of the licence is now outdated) was OK, as was passport – but finding documents to prove address were somewhat more difficult, as I now do all my bills online, so rarely get anything “official” through the post. (As an aside, I wonder how that will change things over the next couple of years, as more and more paper-based stuff is removed/reduced/made into a cost) I did find the necessary bits in the end, but it’s getting to be more hassle than it should be.
Collecting the car (a new Vauxhall Insignia, which is not at all bad, as Vauxhall’s go) was an absolute doddle. The place is quite new, but was really a case of walk in, do the paperwork, check the car, bugger off. All told it was less than 30 minutes – fairly impressive. Because I’d used the same company before (when the Mondeo died on me) I had a lot less ID-checking to do – which seemed odd, as that was two-and-a-half years ago, and lots could’ve changed since then – but it was a nicely painless experience all round.
I’ve plonked about with it a fair bit over the weekend, and yeah, not bad at all.
I’ve also been looking at replacement vehicles – I suspect the Saab has blown up significantly, and will be more to repair than it’s worth, so I’m sounding out alternatives – and there’s a couple I’m going to check out this week, once I know more about the state of the Saab.
And then we come to getting the Saab to the garage. I’d thought a lot about this, and decided that the best plan would be to drive it (slowly, and along backroads) to the garage on Sunday, avoiding all the heavy traffic and any potential issues. If it died, well, I’ve got recovery as part of my car insurance. I left it ’til later in the Sunday, rather than trying to do it while people were still going shopping and so on. I did have my doubts about the plan – but figured it was infinitely better than trying to do it on Monday evening, let alone Tuesday morning!
Anyway, set off lateish on Sunday afternoon (about 5.30) and it was all fairly successful. I got most of the way fine, but then it did die out properly, so I had to do the recovery thing. In fairness, even that ended up going really smoothly – the recovery vehicle turned up within half an hour, and took me to drop the car off at the garage. (I was actually really lucky, because one thing I hadn’t taken into consideration was the fact it was the Grand Prix at Silverstone, so traffic and breakdowns were greatly increased later on!)
Then it was just a case of dropping off the keys, and getting a cab home – all told, I was home by 8pm, which wasn’t bad, when everything was taken into consideration.