I have been doing sums.
It has been a day of thinking, difficult thinking, the sort where you put your Thinking Cap on and scowl.
Obviously this only happens to me when I am trying to arrange our taxation affairs, and that is what I have been doing today. I spent quite some time of it on the phone to the accountant, who is so patient he could teach an infant class to do embroidery. Eventually he said kindly that it didn’t matter that I was very bad at sums, because my letters always make him laugh.
Partly I think they make him laugh because of the hopeless summing, rather than because of any great talent for witticism, and even though I was furiously writing down everything he told me, I still had to email him again afterwards to ask about the bits that it turned out I hadn’t understood after all.
He first sent me the tax bill a few days ago, and it was the sort of number that makes you want to crawl under the bed and never come out again, but then it turned out that it included next year’s tax as well, which we don’t have to pay any more now that we are gainfully employed and not rascally pirates. When the Inland revenue thinks you are a bit dodgy they ask for cash up front, exactly the way I do with customers whom I suspect might not be entirely reliable. We are legitimately sober and sensible now. We can just pay tax as we go along like everybody else.
It was an informative afternoon, not that I can remember a word of it now. The only subject upon which I am entirely clear is that it appears HMRC still owes us money. That is because they stole so very much of it when Mark first started work that we had hardly got anything left.
This would be a very much happier position if I could work out how to get it out of them again. I have had to write to the accountant to ask for suggestions. They do not answer the phone to people they suspect might be a nuisance.
I sympathise with that position.
Lucy’s boyfriend Jack has been staying with me. He is going to be our new lodger for a while. I do not mind this because he is a nice chap, and so far has managed not to be a nuisance in the least. He arrived last night, and slipped off to work this morning long before I emerged from my bed, and then reappeared when he had finished working this afternoon.
I was occupied with shouting at Vodafone on the telephone when he appeared. They had sent me a letter complaining that I had not paid my bill. When I telephoned them in some perplexity, they explained that it was because they had cancelled my direct debit after they accidentally took two payments a couple of months ago.
They had not thought it might interest me to be informed about it.
My incoherent astonishment at this was only surpassed when they added that because of improvements they were making to their payment system, they couldn’t take a payment over the telephone. I would have to go to my bank, make a payment from there, and then email evidence of it to Vodafone. If I didn’t do this then they would mark it as unpaid and my credit score would be blotted.
Jack arrived whilst I was still swearing at them.
He nodded sagely and sloped off until I had finished. Lucy seems to be training him rather well.
After that I coughed up some colossal sum for insuring the taxis, unsuccessfully tried to understand my accounting system and eventually gave up.
I have hardly written any of my story.
I am going to try and write some now, whilst we are quiet on the taxi rank.
Until next time.
