(no subject)

[girlofprey]

Gary, Gary, Gary. You are never going to get that shag out of David if you keep making cracks about his mother. And he'll never get to see your "new moves".

(I love tonight's Coronation Street. David caught Gary sneaking home, and first they went to the shed in Gary's garden where David used to hang out when Darryl lived there, and they confused each other about words that were made up of other words, and then David invited Gary round to his house 'for crisps', and they drank beer and talked about David's mum being in prison, and Gary being on the run from the army, and then argued, and then Gary made David give his word that he wouldn't mention having seen him, and then left, and David was laughing, but then looked kind of thoughtful. It was brill.)

Anyway. Ways in which administration has screwed me over slightly today:

• I'm on a scheme at the Jobcentre which means I have extra appointments and see an advisor outside of my signing on appointments, which is apparently something they did on the old scheme, but Nottingham was on the new scheme, but at my local Jobcentre they're still on the old scheme, so I'm doing that. Or something. But basically I had my first appointment at the beginning of April/end of March, and I couldn't have another one until today at 10am because my advisor woman was doing a training course and going on holiday. But then on Saturday I got an envelope from the Jobcentre with just another appointment card, with the same woman, with an appointment on in for next Tuesday. Nothing else, nothing to say if today's one had been cancelled or why I'd gotten it. And it was the weekend, so I couldn't call the Jobcentre to check or anything. So I had to get up this morning, in time to possibly go to today's appointment, and call to ask if today's appointment was cancelled. Which it was. So I went back to bed.



• Do you remember the £327 I got from the electricity company according to the last readings after I left the flat? I mentioned it in passing I think, but didn't talk too much about it. Anyway, because it was so high, I think more than twice as much as I'd ever paid on an electricity bill, I'd decided I was going to try to double check it, and the only way to do so was to double check the readings on the meter. But, because I've been going away to Filey and things and because the meter is in a privately owned garage and I'd have to go through the landlords who don't always get back to me again, and because I leave everything till the last minute, I didn't get onto doing it until last Wednesday. Happily, I managed to get straight through to the landlords on the phone, but instead of calling the man who owns the garage themselves they just gave me his number. Which was quite useful really, but also a bit awkward, so I left again until Saturday. He also, happily, picked up his phone straight away, and he was actually in the garage, so he gave me the readings again. And I think the ones I got before must have been wrong, because I still had them and not only were the first two readings quite a lot higher than in the first set, the last two readings were lower than the ones I'd previously been given.
  
  However, I got to thinking that if some of the readings were higher, maybe if I gave them in I'd actually get an even larger bill. So I was debating whether or not to call, and my mum pointed out that before doing that I should really check with my landlords if anyone else was living in the flat now, in which case there'd be no point giving in the new readings. So I called this morning, and accidentally told them that I'd gotten some new readings and they weren't the same as the other ones I'd gotten - which meant that if someone new moved in and there was a discrepancy with the meter readings, the landlords might know that I knew about it, which could be unpleasant.
  
  But in any case, I was looking on the bill to see which readings cost more than the others, and it actually had the readings they'd taken on it, and they were pretty much the same as the ones the man who owned the garage had given me. He'd said something about the electricity company having been down to check the meter themselves, and I guess that is what they'd done. So, basically, after all that, the bill I have is based on the actual readings, so is all correct. Which in a way is bad, because now I have to pay it - but at least I know it's what I should be paying, and I can just go and pay it and get it all sorted out now. And then, having finally paid the bills, I can try to get my bond back from my landlords (which is just slightly more than the price of the bill). But anyway. At least it's pretty much sorted out now. This is not so much a story of administration screwing me over as me worrying over a massive bill. But still. The wonderful world of big companies, communication and bills, hey?

That is all the exciting things going on in my life, anyway. Apart from my dad having booked a holiday in Spain, near Barcelona, which I get to go on as well, in a few weeks time. Hurray.