Well, less than a day before we move, and we’re knackered! Still got the Kitchen and Sitting Room to pack and clean, and the toilet to clean too, but we’ll make it.

We won’t have a new phone until May 5th, so don’t expect us to be on-line until then.

This is us, signing out for now.

Warning, this is a rant.

*FX : Rant on

Why do people make things so hard? Why is moving house such a difficult activity? John German claim we owe then three extra days rent, because we pay our direct debit on the 27th of the month. I thought the whole point of ‘per calendar month’ rent agreements was that you paid the same sum, regardless of how long the month was, and that sum covered your whole month’s rent. If you live in the property for 14 months, you pay 14 times the same amount. John German are claiming that because our direct debit goes in on the 27th of the month, that we’re paying from the 27th of one month to the 26th of the next, and because we’re moving out on the 30th, we therefore owe some rent.

I can’t believe it. We moved into this place on the 28th of February, last year. So while our first payment did indeed leave our account on the 27th, it covered a single day in February. And, since that assumes we paid for the day we moved in, while the previous tenant was moving out, then we can’t be paying for Friday the 30th of this month, since the new tenant moving in must be. I just can’t get my head around it, the whole bloody point of paying per calendar month is to avoid this kind of shit.

What’s more annoying, is that we decided to stay with John German, because it should make moving house easier – and in fact – we didn’t want to move, the day we were supposed to re-sign our contract, the landlady suddenly decided she wanted the place back – so we’re being forced to move. The whole thing stinks. It’s all very annoying.

Why does it cost £120 to sign a contract, that smells bad to me as well, but we just put up with these things because we think they must know best, they do this for a living

I want to be able to trust people. I want to be able to buy a product or service, and know that the seller wants to do a good job for me, not just wants the money, but wants to have pride in what they do. But it can’t work like that any more – people need money too badly – so they take jobs they have no interest in – they do them for the salary, and if the customer doesn’t seem happy, so what, who cares, they don’t.

All I want is someone to explain things, to give a shit about how I feel, to say, “yes, we should have told you there’d be three days of rent to pay, when we said your contract expired on the 30th of April”, not “oh by the way, pay the £35 you owe us or we’ll take action”.

When someone says, “we’ll ring you back”, I bloody expect them to ring back. Hah, stupid of me I know.

Aaaaaarrrggggghhhh, the whole thing is just so bloody frustrating. The nurse last week told me I had high blood pressure, I almost laughed, it’s not bloody surprising, I’ve got Bell’s Palsy, and only one of the four professional people I saw about it seemed to give a shit, and I’m moving house (being forced to move house) and I can’t get a straight answer about anything from the company, because none of them know anything.

I don’t want an easy life – I don’t want everyone to help me through it – but I bloody expect to be given the same amount of consideration that I give other people if they come to me for assistance. People have a right to expect a certain level of personal attention surely? At the very least I’m paying their bloody wages, but that’s not the underlying point, the underlying point is they would expect it if they were in my position, and yet they fail to consider that and provide it when the tables are turned.

o Am I being unfair? Probably.
o Why do I feel so guilty about blaming these people? Social conditioning.

The most frustrating element is the ‘there’s nothing you can do’ feeling. They have the high ground, because I don’t have anywhere to live if I don’t follow their lead. I wish I had more courage, to tell them where to get off, but that’s cutting your nose off to spite your face, so instead, we just put up with it, pay the money, grumble, moan and get on with life.

I’m sick of doing that.

I’m sick of just putting up with other people’s shit attitude.

I demand the same level of service I provide.

I demand the same level of consideration from people, that they would expect if they were asking for it.

*FX : Rant off

Well, time draws on, the move is ever closer, and the packing, while slow going, is at least going. I’ve got no pain today at all, but the response from my face is still pretty bad, no movement in the middle-left at all, a little at the bottom and a little at the top. I can’t tell if it feels better because I’m used to it, or if it feels better because it’s getting better. My eye isn’t as bad – and it doesn’t get tired as quickly, although looking at the screen for more than 20 minutes causes it to water!!

Finally got confirmation today from John German’s that we have the house we were after – they say that they told us this in our last conversation, but all I remember them saying was “yes, you can have a cat in the place”, not, “yes, you’ve got it, and you can have a cat”. Ah well, at least that’s one less worry.

I still can’t believe how helpful our friends are being – I keep trying to work out why they are bothering with us since we just seem to be hassle most of the time, but I guess that’s what friends are about.

Spending the tidying up the web site still further – instead of packing obviously. My Bells Palsy is still present, the pain is worse today, although I do have more movement back in my face. Anyway, back to the website stuff – it’s odd, more and more people from my place of work are finding the site – and I’m wondering more and more about how wise it is to keep these diary entries ‘honest’. I’ll keep doing them I guess. I should imagine it’s rather confusing for most of the people I work with to find pages about ‘Blade’, but it’s a hard concept to explain, and while I was going to try a little ‘what is this Blade crap’ on my site, I’ve decided against it. Which is odd, because just before I started writing this paragraph, I was all for it. See, now you’re even more confused than ever. I know I am.

Ah, don’t you love moving house. We’ve had to extend the loan again, to cover deposit, legal fees and all those other lovely bits. One day we might actually get the loan to go down.

Does everyone find life this difficult? Ok, so we’re not badly off, we’re not starving, and we can always manage, but sometimes it would be nice to get a break, and actually pay off some of the loan instead of just increasing it.

Sometimes I don’t like myself very much either, which doesn’t help matters.

Well, I’ve moved desks at work, and I’m trying hard to change the pattern I’ve fallen into. When you don’t have anything challenging to do for a long time, it becomes too easy to avoid it again, but I’ve managed to get involved in at least two major pieces of work, pushing them forward, and hopefully more will turn up. Now all I need to do is work out how to stop feeling like I don’t fit in at work … I’m sure I’ll get there in the end.

We managed to finish this month £150 up, which is excellent, Grete’s spending some tomorrow on an evening out with friends, and the rest will go towards moving house. Moving house I hear you say? Again? So soon? Well yes, the owner of this place wants to move back in, so once again we’re looking for somewhere to live.

It’s really cold, so I’m shivering as I type this – I guess I should go and buy some more gas, but it’s colder out there than it is in here, so I’ve not gone yet. It’s been ages since I updated the diary, sorry about that (hey, what do you care), but the main problem is that I (we) seem to have a social life finally!

We’re no longer playing just MERP in the roleplaying sessions on Sunday’s, we’re alternating between Warhammer, Fading Suns, Force Lords, MERP, Xena & Hercules. In our Thursday games with Ness and Tony we’re playing Warhammer again, which is good, ‘cos I like Warhammer FRP!!

Managed to get a David Gemmell newsgroup together, which is picking up support, alt.books.david-gemmell, so if you’re a fan, why not wander along.

Planning on doing lots of LRP this year, finances willing, probably going to this one, and then the Gathering, and probably some/all of the Moots (possibly Heartland games, although that’s stretching the money a bit).

You’ll be pleased to know that the heating has finally kicked in, our last £2.00 is slowly decreasing, and I’m preparing to head off into the big outside to get some more gas. Wish me luck.

I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas. No money for presents this year, just trying to get onto a level footing before the year is up, so we can try and get things organised next year and pay off the debt. Ah well, we’ll keep going 😉

Well, it’s certainly been a while since I put the last diary entry in here. I’ve sort of been busy playing with Gemmell Mania over on Darkstorm, which has been fun. Other than that, nothing much going on, no money as usual, and Christmas is looming, but we’ll get by.

Finally got the domain name sorted out, at the moment it’s got my Gemmell Mania page there, and more to come soon. Winter is advancing, and the mornings are dark. Ah well, not long ’til the summer, and I like the winter truth be told 😉