I'm a keen biker and use my bike at home whenever I can and I also have a folding bike for use when I'm away on the boat. But last week when I had a couple of nights away, I was walking along the river just outside Ely making my obligatory phone home and all was quiet. As I finished my call and turned around to walk back, I thought I would just check to see if any texts had arrived so I walked slowly with my head down looking at my phone. I know lots of people do this nowadays but it's not something I do often. Anyway, no sooner had I found the text button on my phone, I heard a short, sharp cry, 'Look up, look up!'. This took me by surprise, as I thought I was the only person around at the time, but as soon as I looked up a biker whizzed past me doing what I thought must have been 25 mph.
Well, it was quite a shock I can tell you and I let out an involuntary, 'Whoah...'. You know the sort of thing John Wayne might shout if he's trying to stop a stampeding Wells Fargo stage coach (a bit embarrassing if anyone else had heard me). Anyway, I went on my way thinking, 'Why didn't he ring his bell?'. Whenever I approach some one on a narrow path I always ring my bell and slow down, so why didn't he? Perhaps a bell is too namby pamby for a racing bike.
So that's it. I hope you weren't expecting a great punch line or something more exciting but that was about as exciting as it ever gets on the Ouse.
Time for a photo of the Ouse looking its best - again...
Since my last post, I have only been able to visit Skylark a couple of times to keep things clean and tidy, and most importantly, to give the batteries a boost. The probate thing is grinding on at a snails pace due, I'm told, to the very high workload, I presume, too many people are dying at the moment and the government is not providing enough resources to cope with it.
To give some idea of the delays involved, letters and emails are said to be answered in 10-12 days and phone calls within 48 hours but the people there have not yet achieved those targets. The only way I can get any response, is to badger them over the phone until someone gets the message that I want answers; not a good state of affairs.
And while I'm in 'Mr Grumpy' mode, why don't large organisations like building societies, bank and service providers link up their computers so they stop sending me letters and emails about the aforesaid estate that wind me up? I have had to phone so many of them just to repeat what I've already told someone else and then, a couple of weeks later, I get another letter from their computer when it (the computer) decides it hasn't heard from me lately. I have had to make a few complaints.
Anyway, I may get away again this week for a night on the river. The weather is set fair, there is enough fuel in the tank and I think I can leave the hard-pressed Probate Officers to work through some of their backlog without any hassle from me.
I'm sure the they will be pleased with that and I can look forward to receiving my paperwork when I get back - ha!
