Grumpy

In the past couple of days one or two things have been making me really grumpy.  Perhaps it's my age (I'm well into the 'Grumpy Old Woman' age bracket now,) perhaps it's the thought of summer drawing to a close, or perhaps it's just me.  But whatever it is certain things really been getting on my nerves.  Here are some of the highlights.

There's the fact that the local health food shop had no quinoa in stock ('it'll be in next Tuesday') and only one tin of chick peas on the shelf.  I knew what the answer to my question, 'Have you got any more tins of chick peas in the stock room?' would be - 'they'll be in next Tuesday.'   And that was last Thursday!!  I have to admit to having voiced my disapproval quite loudly on my way out.  Really, are a couple of tins of organic chick peas and a bag of quinoa too much to ask for?  And are they really that keen to stay in business?

Then, also last Thursday, our gas bill arrived.  How the heck can we have spent over £71.00 on gas since the end of April when a) no gas has been used at all since the end of May and b) neither P nor I were at home for part of May and if we had the heating on a couple of evenings the rest of the time that was all!  Gordon Bennett - I wish I'd framed the zero gas bill I once managed to achieve during the summer months.  (And, in case anyone was wondering, yes, the meter was read so the gas usage is presumably correct.)

A very protracted and frustrating fight with the local council to get them to do something about the git who's running a motor bike training school in the garage next door.  We've finally got the council to issue a relocation notice but that doesn't come into effect until 30th October.  So that means another three months of being woken up really early every weekend and Bank Holiday plus having all sorts of noise and unsavoury-looking strangers lurking around practically outside our front door at any hour from 7.00 am through to 9.45 pm.  

If we'd given up the fight after the first reply from the council - 'the business causes no impact on the neighbours and therefore no planning permission is required' (Really!  Try living in our house then!) - we'd have been stuck with them for ever and a day.   As it was, both P and I were so annoyed by the council's ludicrous attitude that we fought and fought to get a different verdict, writing letter after letter and e-mail after e-mail and keeping a diary of the goings on for 10 days (at the planning officer's request.)  Apparently though, we shouldn't celebrate just yet as often people ignore relocation notices and carry on regardless.  Oh joy!!

Then there's the time-wasting ebay buyer who's bought a relatively expensive item and strings me along for weeks, promising payment.  Of course they have sent a cheque but it's not arrived (yeah, right) so now they have to stop the cheque (OK, I'll believe you) and once that happens they'll be paying by Paypal.  Just admit you're not going to pay and let me relist the item you numpty!

To top it all off, I couldn't get to the car boot sale yesterday and keep imagining all the wonderful bargains I missed. 

Apologies for the whinging!!  And the excessive use of exclamation marks. I hope to be in a much more positive frame of mind tomorrow.

Comments

[ilona]

Whine all you like, it's your blog. Sometimes things dont seem to go right, but don't worry, it won't last forever. Your downer will become an upper.

[Caroline]

D'you know, I was only wondering about the motor bike training school thing a few days ago - I presumed it had either gone or wasn't bothering you any more as you hadn't mentioned it for a while. Well done on keeping on at the Council - it's farcical, really, isn't it, that if you pay your council tax a couple of weeks late, they're down on you like a ton of bricks, but run a noisy business with no planning permission and they don't seem to care! Unbelievable.