test please delete

[ladymuck]

Lunch: a bowl of my sister's turkey soup (last Christmas's leftovers), as she was kind enough to give me some to bring home yesterday, with a bit of brown bread. Lovely soup that

I was halfway through it when the money arrived! So I immediately got on the phone to the bank to set up CHAPS payments. This turned out to take about forty minutes due to the repeated checks that details were correct, explanations of various scams followed by probing questions to make sure I hadn't fallen for one, and all that. But given the sums involved, I was just glad they were being so thorough

Not sure it'll come through in time for me to clear my mortgage today, so I'll clear it tomorrow instead

And then back to the microwave to reheat what remained of the soup

Congratulations feels like the wrong thing to say, considering the events that had to take place for this to be a possibility. However, being mortgage free is definitely cause for celebration.

[NickFitz]

Congratulations feels like the wrong thing to say, considering the events that had to take place for this to be a possibility. However, being mortgage free is definitely cause for celebration.

Cheers! Yes, it seems a bit odd to be pleased about it. Then again, our Mum was always absolutely determined that we would get it, which was one reason she and Dad wouldn't consider the idea of going into a home. They'd started with nothing (they initially lived in a spare room in her cousin's house, which is where my brother was born) and they wanted us to get the fruits of their labours, and she very specifically wanted me to be able to clear my mortgage - she said so about a month before she died

[xoggoth]

Been giving lot of my money to my sons recently to avoid the **** Labour tax raid on Oct 31st.

Unconnected, I'm surprised most of Russia is on Google Street View.

[NickFitz]

Tea: pork cutlet with chips and beans

That reminds me, I need to put the dishwasher on

[ladymuck]

Sausage, egg and chips for dinner.

Much rain this evening. Later than forecast, the afternoon being quite sunny for a brief time.

The recycling bin for the flat upstairs has gone missing. It was there on Monday but not returned when emptied on Tuesday morning. The lad who lives in that flat is quite confused.

[NickFitz]

Some rain here too, but not too bad. More due tomorrow though

Tonight's viewing was the Gloucestershire police thing :

And amidst all the other excitement, I'd completely forgotten about the new Apple Watch arriving this morning. This has now been unboxed and set up. My ECG is normal, apparently

Finally, some more of Burmese Days has been read

Early night now. Tomorrow, I pay off the mortgage, which will involve a trip to an actual bank branch

Goodnight all

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Thursday

Grey.

Dark.

Dank.

Dreary.

Dire.

Wet.

Sunless.

Chilly in here at 16.9 deg, 18 deg in the kitchen, 16 in the leanto.

981 mBar, 28.968 735.8 in Hg, 14.2282 Torr, psi, (down from 985 last night), 77% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 16th of November 2019 LM was doing her VAT return & some OU stuff: the Book was Opened, whereas NF had pressed a switch into use that he'd purchased some 3 years earlier, and I detailed all the stuff in here that's been bought & never used, the Lexmark printer from 2002 winning in those stakes.

Freecell score: 88%, running average: 77%.

Sun's out.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in sunshine until the rain returned just as I got home.

Lunch: there was.

Entertainment: read book.

Freecell.

Tea: beans on toast etc.

Entertainment: PM. <click>

Read book. Read other book. Finished both books. Found new book. Finished new book.

Trucking Hell S8 E20: last in series.

Found another book.

Choice of watching "The Big Sleep (1946)" or Apocalypse Now (final cut).

Or neither.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Sunny start, though it seems from the watery evidence to have been a bit rainy overnight. Currently 13°C with an expected high of 16°, while the barometers have plummeted to 973/981mB. There's a 45% chance of rain in the next hour and then similar odds of more this afternoon and into the evening and overnight

Time to do some banking. The burden that is wealth!

[NickFitz]

Banking done, such that I can pay the mortgage off when I get around to driving over to the nearest branch.

Yesterday, I'd transferred a load of money over to the Halifax as the relevant page on their website said I could pay the mortgage off from any Halifax account. Then I discovered that this isn't true, it can only be done from a current account, and I had a savings one. I could have faffed around opening a current account with them, I suppose, but who knows what that might involve? So I wanted to transfer the money back, but there's a daily transfer limit! I transferred as much as was allowed to get things started, then phoned them up to see what could be done.

A very nice lady with a Scouse accent told me they have a High Value Payments team that can do up to £100K/day, but you have to specifically ask to speak to them - they aren't mentioned anywhere on the website that I can find - so to call back today when they'd be available. So I just did that, and explained everything to another very helpful lady (Welsh accent) who sorted it out

She had to go through all the fraud stuff that I heard repeatedly yesterday, but halfway through she suddenly burst out laughing! She quickly apologised, and explained that she'd just noticed the reference I'd used for the payment last night: "FFS"

[NickFitz]

Lunch: cocktail sausages and a bag of plain crisps

Still sunny spells here; some big lumpy clouds, but nothing that looks ominous at the moment