When Your Number's Up.

This morning as I left for work I noticed the front number plate was missing from Vicki's car. It wasn't until I went round and looked at the rear of the car that we realised that they must have been stolen because even though they are only attached by sticky tape (Its a French car) you wouldn't expect them to both drop off at the same time so one has to assume they were deliberately taken off by someone. So as they were stolen you also have to assume that they are wanted for something other than ornaments for the mantle piece so Vicki phoned the police to let them know that if her car was reportedly seen speeding away from the scene of a bank robbery it probably wasn't her but the thieving gits who took her number plates. She was told that she needed to inform the DVLA (the vehicle licensing people) which she did only to be informed that the car was not in our name but that of the dealer where we bought it from which means either they never sent off the paperwork or the DVLA have lost it. Either way we now have to redo the paperwork and then wait up to six weeks for the registration document to come through before we can get new plates unless we can find a place that doesn't bother about paperwork. Apparently it might also cost us some money to get new papers although I'm not sure how much. Of course both Evans Halshaw who is the dealer we bought the car from and the DVLA are blaming each other so goodness knows what will happen next. Its a bit annoying to have our car stuck in the garage for six weeks just because someone else has messed up the paperwork. The trouble with this country is that it gets to November and all anyone can think about are the office party and how much time off they can wangle over Christmas, it doesn't matter that they are still responsible for doing a job of work.

Also we have had trouble with Zurich insurance company over the house that we own. This is not to be confused with the fiasco over the flood involving the Co-Op insurance. This new issue is to do with the insurance of our own property. As far as we were concerned we paid our dues in November when it was time but then we got an letter the other day saying that the property insurance was well over due and needed to be paid immediately. So Vicki phoned them to give them what for and the woman took the details of our debit card which we paid with but because of our current cash flow problem I said I would need to pay in on my credit card as there is no money in the bank so she gave me the phone and I did business with a guy. Unknown to me at some point the woman who had been speaking to Vicki had passed the phone to someone else and so we ended up giving them two lots of payment details and before you know it from going all winter with no cover on the house because someone somewhere had messed up AGAIN we had now paid twice! Thankfully they have sorted that out and we have now only paid once but really tonight I am so close to having a Victor Meldrew moment.