Last night, in the middle of the night...

... I woke up...

...a few times which is usual, no problem, it is just what is when you reach an age when bathroom visits are frequent. Actually it was in the early hours of this Thursday morning, about 2 am.

If I allow myself to think, I wake up and it is not possible to go back to sleep for a bit. So, I just make a cuppa and do something until I start yawning, then I go back to sleep.

Anyway, last night I was trying to send some book tokens to Australia. I had sent some the night before no problem. So I was sending the second lot. The site froze, wouldn’t work, and so on. Then the stupid thing that comes up on every site you visit now to say do you accept cookies etc etc. but it doesn’t just come up once, it comes up when you go to another part of the same site, again and again, and when you return back to your initial page. It doesn’t stop coming up and it is very slow to go away even when you say ‘I agree’ or press the ‘X’. And then it comes up again when you are still on the same site trying to make an order.

It drove me insane. Finally I get to the end of my order process, and it asks me to put in my credit card...’you have a fraudulent credit card’ the site flashes at me in red, ‘we take fraud very seriously...’ oh ********....

For goodness sake just take my order.

I tired a different route in the same site, making the order again, but the slowness of the site and the repeated ‘I agree to cookies’ pop up windows I have to agree to, was completely insane. I hate the internet.

Finally I get to the end (don’t you dare refuse my order and my credit card again), and after a hiccup, it goes through and I get the email confirmations etc...

But to get there took a few hours, Not the ‘click’ ‘click’ thing and bob’s your uncle and it takes your credit card in a few seconds, these sites advertise, and hey presto your book token is in the recipients e-mail box.

So, another cuppa and I lie down for sleep. But I can’t settle because I know I still have two U.K. book tokens to do. I just want them off now and that is all done and dusted.

Two hours later I give up on sleep. After all how long is it going to take me to send two National Book tokens to two recipients.

Remember the National Book Tokens? It was a stamp or stamps or something you got when I was a child.

Anyway, I go on to the National Book Token site. I start the process of ordering the first gift card. But again I am being asked to consent to cookies etc. And again that pop up box does not go away easily. And again that ‘I consent’ pop up box comes up on every page within that site.

It was my understanding that this ‘I consent’ box only pops up the first time you visit a site, and then never pops up again, but not at every twist and turn within a site. The screen kept freezing because that box just wouldn’t leave the page.

I tried shutting down stuff on the phone, closing browsers, using a different browser, rebooting, etc etc, all the usual stuff but to no avail.

Finally after a few hours I managed to get to the end process on one of the gift card book tokens. Presented my credit card, let it scan my credit card. Then it told me my credit card was fraudulent.

My credit card is not fraudulent. I cannot telephone (with being deaf) to check if there are any problems, so yesterday I actually drove to the bank itself to get it checked because of the Australian book site insisting it was a fraud. I was assured there was nothing wrong with my card.

By this time it is nearly 1pm today and I suddenly realised I was meant to meet some friends for a last meet for this year before Christmas. But I have missed that now.

I am now due to meet some friends at the art group. I realise it would have been quicker to drive to the nearest city, go to the book shop there, buy some National Book Tokens over the counter, and then post them myself. The other thing I was tempted to do was put a few money notes in a padded envelope and send them. I was beyond caring at this point.

But this thing is not going to beat me. I am going to order them online. And I am going to do it now. So, I check if there are any other book tokens I can order. There are but there were some limitations. However, I saw in google a site called MarketPlace or something, and it tells me I can get all kinds of gift cards off their site, and including the National Book Tokens.

I have always dealt with sites directly and never used anything like this, an intermediary site, but I check it out and it seems fine.

It is worth a try. So 1pm I log in to their site. Just the one unobtrusive ‘I consent’ pop up window came up, and went away when I clicked ‘I agree’ and it didn’t come back up again.

It brings up a National Book Tokens order form very quickly (but not the actual National book Tokens site itself). I chose a card, and am able to customise it with a name and a personal message, enter address so easily,. Then it asks if I want to make another book token order. Yes I do, and I do the same again. Okay you want to pay now it asks me. Yes I do (with trepidation after all the problems I had earlier). Fine, put your card details in. Fine, your card has been accepted and the transaction has gone through.

WHAT? It is that easy?

Seconds later the site sends me email confirmations and when the book token cards will be delivered. Then I get more email confirmations, and from my credit card. Then I get email confirmations from the actual National Book Tokens site (which wouldnt even let me make an order, earlier, and when I did it refused my card), and they too tell me when the National Book tokens will be delivered to the recipients.

The time now? 1.07 pm. Seven minutes this took! And all those hours I wasted.

At art, I grumble about all this, and another person tells me she too had her credit card refused a couple of times in the last two weeks. She rang the bank to check. And she said the bank told her that randomly for no reason credit cards are refused and you are told online you have a fraudulent card. But she was told to present the card again, and by presenting it a second time, the bank know you are not a fraudster and the card will go through.

How rediculous. You have spent ages customising your order and you have to do the same thing all over again.

I didn’t do much at art because I was talking (grumbling). So I wasn’t looking at the gel plate prints I was doing but just did several with this embroidered flower motif without looking to do the brayering of the paint, squoze blues on the gel plate, brayered, then dabbed the motif in the paint then pressed some paper into it, then did another. But I was concentrating on lipreading to talk. Oh I’ll have that one said one, I’d like that one said another, you’re not taking them home are you? Nah, I said, so I was just left with this one...for my blip!!!!

I went to bed as soon as I got in, I was exhausted. Fell asleep. An hour ago Popeye jumped on my chest from a height, and woke me up with a shock. I thought the bungalow roof had fallen in, and the wardrobe which I can see at the end of my bed had no back to it and went on to infinity...it was quite scary...flipping heck.

So I got up to make a cuppa and write this up...and shut that cat in the kitchen (with food)...I could have done without that near heart attack...

Take care and have fun x