Hmmph!

I've talked a lot about our online bridge, so this is what it looks like. This hand was a strict no bid but as one of our 4 had just lost his Internet signal - it's like that in the wilds of Fife sometimes - I didn't even get to say no bid as we finished for the evening. Good news was though that my partner and I won on IMPs. Result!!!

Thursday today and I made the most of the good weather by meeting up with both girls outdoors at their respective houses for a coffee. Lovely to catch up with them both and as there were no small children in sight, Katy could talk like a grown up for a change!
I popped in briefly to M&S and Waitrose this afternoon, but kept a good distance. I do wish M&S did self scanning, it's much easier to keep away from people that way, and I can't believe I just said that, when not so long ago I was advocating avoiding them to keep people in work. That one is a moral dilemma I can't resolve.

I was just reversing up the drive home again, when a call came through on my hands free from City of Edinburgh Council about the council tax problem I mentioned on Monday. The end result was that it's all fixed, the warrant is cancelled the additional costs have been removed. They've removed the wrong addresses from our account and even apologised for their mistakes both verbally and in the confirming email which I asked for. A good result and only three days after I complained. I just wish I could have had the confidence, when the letter arrived in Saturday, that it could be fixed so easily then I wouldn't have worried. Now we just have to get Scottish Power to refund the £500+ that they admit that they owe the church. That has dragged on for eight months now and in their own words the only way to sort it out was to make formal complaint then, when that failed, to escalate the level of complaint. Our hearts sank when we saw watchdog dog item on them recently, however we think we may be getting there at last. Fortunately the church can afford to be temporarily out of pocket for that length of time, many families couldn't and wouldn't necessarily have the resources to complain either.
We had online evening prayer before dinner. It's always good to see and talk to people without masks on, a benefit of Zoom.
It's Guy Fawkes night tonight and there have been lots of fireworks going off all evening. Fortunately after the first couple of bangs and whooshes, Cleo hasn't been bothered. There'll be another lot in a few weeks time for Diwali! Not my favourite form of entertainment I'm afraid.
All told though its been a good day, now, if only we could fix the political situation... and the virus...

Keep well and safe everybody, those numbers are going down consistently.