Categories: uncategorized
Date: 20 August 2004 11:53:15
OK, so now the injection's wearing off and I am beginning to be able to feel the side of my mouth again! Ooooooooh!!! Mind you, that was one expensive Fruit Pastille - one chew and I end up needing to pay out £100 to have the filling replaced and half the tooth repaired. The dentist was lovely, mind, and the nurse didn't scream one bit when I broke all the bones in her hand squeezing it while he did the injections.
I am starting to think my attempts to economise are doomed. Doooooooomed. I have never, repeat never, spent so much money in one month, not even at Christmas.
Earlier this week I realised I needed new windscreen wiper blades. Off I went to Halfords to buy some. The boys enquired how I intended to fix them and I explained I had three options. I could ask Grandad to do it, I could do it myself (well, I've done them before, and I've trained in Car Maintenance, and they're supposed to be easy enough) or I could use the tried and tested and extremely effective method of smiling sweetly at the salesman and asking him to do it. I'd decided to opt for the third... until I saw there was a standard charge of £2.60 for fitting! Blow that for a game of soldiers, I'd do it myself. Of course, the fittings were different than the old ones. Would they go on? They would not! Fiddle... manoeuvre...twist...fiddle and.... TWANG CRUNCH.. the wiper bracket flies out of my hand and thwacks against the windscreen, sending a lovely crack straight up the front. New windscreen - £60 excess on my insurance.
To get my windscreen repaired on the insurance I needed to produce my certificate of insurance. Could I find it? Anywhere? At all? No - everything but. Replacement document? £15.
While talking to the insurance, I decided that I was just going to have to bite the bullet and have the damage to my boot door done while I was at it. I mean, I can't go around with a gate-post-shaped dent for ever. £125 excess, and 2 years no-claims bonus down the drain!
Meanwhile, back at the camp, my sister wants me to print out some invitations for her (whatever event they are for is a heavily guarded secret... and surely I can't be THAT old!) because she hasn't a colour printer. She emails them to me and, guess what, they're in a version of Publisher that won't open on my version. A quick trip to Staples and I discover that a) there's no way round this without upgrading Publisher and b) my version of Publisher is too old to take an upgrade, I will have to buy a new disc and reinstall completely. AGGHHH. Still, seeing as I was going to have to do this eventually as all my paperwork done at school is on a different version too, I decide to bite the bullet. Hmm.. easier said than done. I might have known that the more recent version of Publisher would not run on Windows ME. Yes, you've guessed it, another hundred pounds or so to install XP. Still, the invitations look good. I wonder what event they're for ;)
Add to this the fact that my long-awaited Massage training course starts in a week and a bit's time... and they'll want a payment too. Does anyone fancy buying two small, well trained children? Good at cooking and washing up and currently learning to iron? (I'm not stupid)
Oh, and talking of which, any idea how to get the message through to my father that I am paying for the cleaner to do an hour at his house and two at mine, not two and a half at his house and twenty minutes and a cup of coffee at mine?????
Good job I'm such a patient person :)
(And just to note, I have stopped the anti-depressents now that I reckon I've made enough changes in life not to succumb to stress. It will be interesting to see just how irritable I become over the next few weeks!)