......I fought the law......

and the law won!

A really crappy 18 hours.

Charlotte's birthday tea with the Baking Birds excellent cakes was a bit of a damp squib....the man fitting the new boiler was here until almost 8.00p.m.....it's hard to have a tea party when your bathroom is in your bedroom and your kitchen is in your living room.

Just before midnight the Daughter was in the shower. We knew our old shower was on it's last legs....and the man had warned us that this new system has very high pressure.....but we didn't expect the joint in the mixer dial to blow! The water was spraying horizontally across the bathroom and leaking through the kitchen ceiling...we managed to get it turned off but that meant we had no water and no heating.

The Boss had to go to her dad's early this morning, it's becoming a more frequent process as he gets frailer and the hospital appointments get more frequent.

I had to wait in for the plumber....so I had to phone Shaun to tell him I wasn't going to make it to court for the case to decide who runs the fishing club. The plumber arrived at 10.00....so now we have water but no shower until our new bathroom is fitted....starting on the 28th!....good job we have a bath!

It was way too late to try and get to the court by the time the plumber left so I went straight to work.

Shaun phoned about 1.00 to tell me we'd lost the court case...or we hadn't really. Six years ago a group of 8 out of a club of 500+ started causing trouble...so eventually we "expelled" them...they set themselves up as an alternative committee and managed somehow to persuade our bank to allow them to take over an account with 18 grand in it. We protested and the bank froze the account......It took 4 years to get a court ruling that we had to have an EGM regulated by a thing called a Tomlin Order to settle the issue. As soon as the rebels realised they would lose the vote they walked out...we went back to court...only to be told we hadn't fulfilled the requirements of the Order so we had to do it all again. We took legal advice from a JP and appointed a solicitor...we followed the advice to the letter...held a second EGM last year ...and they walked out again...so we went back to court...this time with a Barrister on the advice of our Solicitor. The Judge listened to the minutes of the meeting and then ruled...that we had lost the case because we still hadn't followed the Order correctly..in fact we'd done the opposite of what was required.

So the situation is we don't control the bank account ...but neither do the breakaway group...it has to sit frozen until everyone involved in the case has retired from the committee or popped their clogs! But he also ruled that the voting part of the meeting was perfectly legal and we do control the club...and the breakaways are expelled....and we don't have to re-admit them...and neither party can touch the 18 grand unless we ask them to return it as it is the member's money not the Committee's. Fat chance of that happening!

He also ruled that neither party can bring a second case about this matter....nor can either of us persue the other for the money already spent...although because we brought the case the others were awarded £2300 costs.

Where's the common sense? We run the club, but not the bank account, we were within our rights to exclude them, they were not within their rights to declare themselves the Committee, the bank was not right to let them take over the mandate for the account, our Solicitor is a complete tit who gave us wrong advice for three years, so essentially we're no further forward after 6 years, they will still intimidate anglers, make nuisances of them selves, and do nice tricks like glueing up the locks on the store for the kids equipment or better still filling the locks with dog shit!...we will still coach kids, work hard maintaining the waters and the fish stocks, hold meetings and still not be able to apply for grants to help because they will keep blocking our applications if they hear of them.

Then a long meeting after work....and late night shopping....and to put the tin hat on it today would have been my Mum's 77th birthday!

I think I'm going to go to bed and hide!

Das vidanya moy padruga.