Banking

Yesterday my lovely cleaners came; the senior one just back from a week in Portugal (the Algarve). After, TBSITW called round for a chat clutching 2 bottles of the famous Noilly Prat and also the famous potted meat from the butcher in a near by village. Of course I had it for my evening meal served with potato, carrot, turnip and steamed tender stem broccoli and leek. It was delicious, quite peppery where it is often bland. You put the potted meat on top of the potato and it melts into it. Mmmmm.

Some time back I had to cancel a credit card as it was lost. I use Credit Card Protection, so I called the company and asked them to cancel the card and request a new one. It has been almost two weeks and the replacement has still not arrived so I called to discover that, yes, it had been cancelled and a new account number applied, but nobody had ordered a replacement card. It is now, supposedly, on its way.

I have two credit cards and manage them on line, so when I discovered that the last 5 or so purchases had not been posted I worried that the card protection people had cancelled both cards. This morning I called the bank and after I had gone through the "if you are calling about x, press button 1" etc, and gone through all the security questions, they had a look and were able to confirm that all the "missing" ones had gone through.

The nice man asked me if I were on line and I said that I was and I was on the recent transactions page. Before he could say another word, I noticed that at the foot of the page there was a next page button. Because I usually use both credit cards and one was unavailable I had rather more transactions than usual on this one and had neither needed nor noticed that option. (In fact, I don't think it appears unless there is something posted on the following page).

Ooooops! Another senior moment!

Farmers' Market

Another beautiful day today and TBSITW collected me and took me to the Farmers' Market. There were a lot of people there even fairly early in the morning. I took my "spending allowance" in one pocket of my fleece and a spare £20 in an inside pocket.

So, of course I had to break into my spare!

I bought smoked trout flakes, a salmon steak, on to two packs of lamb mince, next some flat beans and a bunch of white turnips, then on to a pack of scrummy pork sausages and some streaky bacon, a beautiful baguette and 4 cheese scones and a cauliflower At the end I bought a pack of raspberries and 6 assorted (white leghorn, Rhode Island red and blue (can't remember) eggs.

So we both took our shopping to the car and returned for a last look round and a locally made ice cream cone which we took into the near by park, where we sat on a wall - elegant as ever!


Then home to unpack, have a cup of tea and 2 cheese scones.

After I got home I telephoned the Halifax to see if my credit card was still active. It is so I asked for a new card.

Halifax 1, Marks and Spencer 0.

Bridge again.

Today I went to the Bridge Club. I looked at the book to see how well my partner and I had done, especially as we came top the last time we played together.

However, this time we came bottom.

Oh the shame of it!

I played today with a gentleman whom I have seen at the Club but with whom I have never played. He said that I had drawn the short straw, but I said that he had.

As usual I have no real idea how we have done but all will be revealed next week.

After sitting for several months with a very small credit balance on a credit card I was thinking of closing, I finally did something about it. I asked if they could close the account and transfer the credit balance to my bank account (same bank).

But no.

However they could, and did, send me a cheque.

And today I paid in that cheque in the vast sum of £2.55.