The Postman (Should've) Knocked

Fortunately I was at home yesterday when the postman tried to push a package through the letterbox, and it got stuck... big time stuck.

We have a letterbox guard to prevent the dogs from eating the post before we can get to it. They are generally very well behaved and don not chew, unless it's paper.

I wasn't even aware we were waiting for a package to be delivered but, here it was, well and truly stuck between the cage and the door. I opened the door to see if I could pull it out from the other side but it was solid.

Neil came and applied his engineering head, and before removing the dog guard altogether, a series of strategically placed screwdrivers and knives, along with a lot of manipulation and finally we had the box free.

Recently, I have been reviewing all our bill providers and changing many of them to more favourable tariffs. One such bill was the electricity and part of the change meant I got a 'handy monitor' to allow me to see what appliances use how much electric and be a little more discerning about leaving things plugged in 'for convenience'. The irony is that the little gizmo runs on electric, one more thing to plug in but, we dutiful have set it all up and can see it happily sit at the lower end of the scale until we turn the kettle on, the fridge freezer fires up or, and this is the real killer, the hot tub goes on to filter cycle. Fortunately, most of these are short term burst of usage and the monitor then settles back to it's relatively low reading. Certainly an interesting gizmo and one to focus just what we are paying good money for.

In addition, the postman had also brought me an envelope from the Inland Revenue. Having already had a tax refund cheque in the last couple of months I thought this could only mean one thing...

They wanted the money back.

I have 2 sources of income, along with my job I have a small pension (yes, I really am old enough!) and so my tax code is split, but both are taxed at source.

I left the envelope on my desk for a few hours while I did everything I could to avoid opening it and face the truth. With the cost of the car repair still smarting I really didn't feel I wanted to send money back to the tax office.

Eventually I could put it off no longer and sat down with my cheque book. I opened the envelope and pulled out...

A cheque...

Yes, they've sent me some more money. I'm not sure why yet as they haven't sent me through the calculation to go with it but hey, I'm not complaining, I'm spending it...

On these...  

I always clip the dogs myself and mine are a cheap model that are nothing more than rebadged hair trimmers that are sold as dog trimmers but struggle with their fur. It take forever to get the dogs done and last week I ended up finishing Brinkley with the scissors, they just would not cut his fur. I had Neil take them apart and do everything he could to make them work but, nothing. 'You need some new ones, and some proper ones this time', he said.

So, we had already done our research and decided which clippers to get, we just needed to wait for payday...

And now it's come early, I can get them ordered. 

Thank you Inland Revenue.