Attention shoppers!

I’ve just eaten some grapes and they’ve made me feel a bit sick, which is troubling because you don’t expect that with grapes. Grapes are one of life’s ‘not supposed to make you feel queasy’ food stuffs, unless of course they’ve been turned into wine in which case they can and often do make you ill – I’ve lost days of my life to vino hangovers…

Anyway, traffic was predictably hideous this morning because of the tube. I set off 45 minutes earlier and got in slightly later! And everyone was getting impatient – horns beeping, people accelerating hard, braking late, using bus lanes etc. I just sat listening to country music with such classic lines as “Attention late night shoppers, two for one on broken chains!” Brilliant…

I wouldn’t like to be working on the tubes, because right now tube workers are about as welcome as bird flu. Tube drivers earn more than some fire-fighters and police officers and the impression the RMT give is that they’ll stop working at a drop of a hat. There was a story about a driver who had been drinking on duty and was sacked because of it. The union threatened a strike because he they said he had been unfairly dismissed! Another driver who took huge amounts of sick leave because of a problem with his ankle, he was photographed playing squash – he got the push and they threatened to strike again!

RMT members may say I’m being very unfair, that there are valid reasons for calling a strike but your average Jo/anna don’t know or see that. They see the union trying to act like American Teamsters from the 60s and 70s, and strikers making their lives a misery! This time it’s over pay and conditions – both may be lousy, although as I said, drivers earn a lot of money, far more than people that do a harder and more demanding job, but people don’t care – they are just cursing everyone that’s made them late this morning!

It's only to fair to point out that not all tube workers are represented by the RMT, there are other unions and of course, some people don't belong to a union at all.

We had dinner last night and went straight to bed to read. My partner was feeling under the weather and I was just a bit tired. The new edition of Country Smallholder arrived so I sat in bed reading that with a cup of tea! (I'm so rock and roll!)

My partner has actually had to take today off because she’s really rough this morning – sore throat, headache etc. My first thought was I hope she gets better soon; my second thought was I hope I don’t catch it!

Tomorrow is my alpaca training day, I’m really, really looking forward to it. Will blog all about it on Thursday!

Insurance

Dealing with insurance is, I have discovered, something of a game. Which is a bit strange because I don’t pay my insurance to play games, I play it to look after me if the worst happens – and the worst did happen (well, that’s an exaggeration the worst would have involved physical injury but you know what I mean.)

Anyway, the insurance came back to us yesterday and made a predictably low offer. We were warned that this would happen and my partner called them back and in no uncertain terms told them it wasn’t acceptable. To cut a long story short, she was great! She argued really well about how much the car was actually worth and they agreed! They upped their offer considerably! But to fair we were never unreasonable. We had taken advice from the garage that assessed the damage to the car about what she was worth and done online comparable checks, and because the car was in such good condition and with such low mileage, the insurance eventually agreed and like I said, came back with a better and far more acceptable offer. So if you have to go through this, be prepared to negotiate! Don’t be greedy or unrealistic and make sure you check market value etc. but remember you don’t have to necessarily accept the first offer – they always come in low. As a bonus, the insurance have verified that it was a no-fault accident and we now have a year’s no claim bonus.

I’ve come into work today to a brand new PC (4 PCs were nicked last week, mine included). It seems that it’s much more powerful than the last one which was infuriatingly slow. My desk is still a mess – they knocked and broke loads of things, but I’ll gradually get things sorted again.

Anyway, as ever, lots to do so I better get on…

(I just booked the day off work next week for my alpaca training day… I’m very excited!)