Never ending personal admin

There is a theme to this January or certainly this week that I shall be pleased to see the back of.   We have checked in for the ski trip.  Seems early to me but they do keep reminding me so we shall see if this stops the emails.

There was then the booking the campsite for our main holiday in the South of France.  When I say ‘campsite’ please do not get the idea we will be in a tent.  We will have a chalet.  I have friends who camp at festivals and even one who is seemingly comfortable wild camping complete with a trowel.  I wish them well but we are unlikely to be joining them.   By ‘unlikely’ I mean that I expect the Winter Olympics will be held in Hades before S and I holiday in a tent.

For skiing I have everything printing out and in a clear plastic wallet because that is what I do.  Quite why when it is also on my phone even I am beginning to question.   For the South of France trip I am trying to resist.   We have been before and being creatures of habit usually arrive around 12.30pm to “Bonjour”, a key handover and more a statement than an enquiry from the owner as to us knowing where we are going.   It may be that they know and trust us but it is probably more likely that the owner wishes to get to lunch.  The French have priorities!  Those priorities do not include needing to see any paperwork at lunchtime from English women of a certain age with or without a clear plastic wallet.

Then there was my annual gasp over the breakdown cover renewal.  It is less than last year but still north of £600.  I had a moan about it to a friend, despite knowing full well that I am going to renew regardless but the moan makes me feel better about it.  She reminded me that we have ‘free’ cover on our bank accounts and of the time it came to her rescue following a puncture.   The problem (and my justification for renewing) is the cover we have is for both S and me, covers us in any vehicle (we do have a few, both ours and the MiL’s, that we drive fairly regularly) both in the UK and throughout Europe and will recover us home.  I am not without form over the decades I have been with the same provider and they all go a little beyond a puncture. 

There was my VW Polo on which the clutch went at the top of Buckingham Palace Road one Saturday morning.  That was sorted at the roadside but I no longer drive in Central London.  It would have to be an emergency for me to drive further in than Stratford after that experience.  Then there was the time my then Alfa blew up just inside the red zone of Redbridge roundabout around 7.30/8am one morning.  My fellow commuters were not kind to me.  I was recovered home in 3 relays over 12 hours.   This was 2-3 years after a previous occasion where I was recovered home following a work Christmas party.  That was a speedier recovery.   I think they appreciated that standing on the hard shoulder of a motorway in the early hours of a December Saturday morning wearing stilettos and sequins is not a great look for a woman alone.  It was also a little chilly.  There was also the time when the water pump on the MiL’s Jeep went on the French motorway not far from Orange.  The recovery truck driver wished us “Bonnes Vacances” and by the time we arrived at our campsite in a rental car we were more at risk of disturbing the owner’s dinner than his lunch.

All in all I can’t deny the ‘free’ bank breakdown cover came good for my friend but I think we need a little more and it is possibly better the devil we know on this one.

S announced on Tuesday that he had renewed the insurance for my handbag on wheels.  So rude!  He was referring to Dilys (mint green Fiat 500).  Firstly, technically, he is both owner and registered keeper and secondly, Dilys’s interior is kept a good deal less cluttered than I ever manage with a handbag. 

I think I have now reinstated/restarted all Apps that were awol/playing up slightly following the slightly less than seamless transfers to my new iPhone and iPad. I have also downloaded a selection of films and other viewing from Netflix and Amazon Prime ostensibly for flights and reviewed my Kindle App.  This was a bit of a surprise as I appear to have purchased a rather eclectic mix of books which should keep me going for most of the year though who knew I was quite so into AI?