The best thing about retirement seems to be that you can do hat you want when you want – more or less. So tomorrow Ed and I will up sticks and head down to Portsmouth to visit relatives and the latest member of the family, just five months old.
Then it’s up into South Wales for a weekend of comparative luxury followed by a visit to North Wales to stay with my cousin for a couple of days before heading home in a week’s time.
See you all in October!
Ed and I have suddenly started getting much more social with this retirement lark and have had several visitors for meals.
On Friday we had the Lay Chairman of our deanery down at rocking rectory, who also happens to play golf with Ed. Being a bloke we thought he’d need feeding well so opted for roast lamb and all the trimmings. He thoroughly enjoyed it but thought it was beef! So much for finesse.
Yesterday the family descended (apart from youngest daughter who was returning from Greece at the time. She’d been delivering her first ever academic paper and was on a high about it when she rang us.) We dished up beef, a nice piece of flat rib which we don’t have now there’s only the two of us, so it was a good opportunity.
It was a good day apart from the fact that three-year-old granddaughter disgraced herself by decorating our wall with felt-tip pen. Fortunately it came off with a dollop of bleach and a good scrub, but she was far from popular.
Were our kids ever like that??
I think so, anyway.<
In order to reopen my original bank account with Paypal, I had to fax the two digit number they sent to the account when I first opened it, around ten years ago! Clearly beyond the scope of human ability. So I opened a new Paypal account, which is remarkably easy with (it seems) very few security checks.
Then I tried to add the original bank account, but it was black-balled. Stymied again.
Today I rang the bank and had a very pleasant conversation with an extremely personable and helpful young man (it was worth it just for that) who offered to look back through all my dealings with the bank over many years, find the two elusive numbers and mail a copy to me. But since I could foresee all sorts of further hideous complications with Paypal and months of trying to sort it out, I decided it was simpler to open a new current account.
“Yes,” said the nice young man, “I can do that for you now and it will be operable immediately. You should receive your new chequebook and debit card within a week. Would you like a credit card as well? Is an overdraft facility of £500 enough for you? Of course, no interest charged on the first £250 of that.”
So that’s what I’ve done. It almost restored my faith in banks. And in case you’re wondering, I bank with First Direct, who are a telephone/online banking arm of HSBC.
Has anyone had problems with Paypal lately?
I had an email from them around three or four weeks ago, saying that due to an ‘internal error’ my bank had denied a Paypal payment, whereupon Paypal had pulled the bank account.
When I went onto the site, I found I couldn’t reinstate the bank account without all sorts of palaver, like faxing bank statements and other things to Paypal. I don’t have fax, so this is a real hassle.
However, it didn’t matter. I had a second bank account authorised by and for Paypal, so I just left them to use that. Today I had another email from them saying exactly the same. Due to an ‘internal bank error’ a payment had been denied so they’d pulled that account too.
Now I’m left just with a credit card authorised by and for Paypal, which is OK unless anyone wants to pay me!
Just wondering, is it me?
I think I might have made a new friend. I recently met the vicar of the neighbouring parish and was delighted to see that she’s in my age bracket. But even better, it turns out that she’s a golfer.
She hasn’t played for a couple of years, but we linked up yesterday morning for a round (actually only managed half a round since there were no buggies available and we were both knackered by the time we reached the ninth hole.) We got on really well and are going to play again when she has the time. She was widowed around three or four years ago, so this might be a good link for both of us.
And who knows? Perhaps one day we’ll be capable of all eighteen holes without collapsing in a heap in the bar on the nineteenth hole.