A mere shadow of myself

My morning was full of tedious bureaucratic admin. I am writing it up only for my own record and I recommend that you don't start reading because it doesn't get any less boring. The satisfaction for me (and for you, if you insist on reading) is in having got to the end and being able to do something different.

So, finally, finally, finally the Deed of Unilateral Understanding that has been delaying planning permission for nearly five months has been signed by all parties. I don't understand even its title - if it were truly unilateral they'd have accepted my signature on it last May but it was multilateral and I've waited all this time for the others to sign. Anyway, I scanned it, I collated the paper version and I delivered it by hand to the City Council Legal Department - ah, no, their office is covid-closed - to the Town Hall letter box. 

Before heading back home I got my birth certificate photocopied and solicitor-endorsed for a quite separate bit of jobsworth bureaucracy (pension, not planning - whichever stars control law were in the ascendant in my life today), added it to an envelope full of other forms and bits of legalese and mailed that to the next stage of its journey through the seas of incompetence. 

Back home I emailed the scanned Deed of Unilateral Understanding to the City Council lawyer just in case the Town Hall letter box doesn't actually connect to any humans and I got an auto-reply saying she is on leave. So I re-emailed it to her colleagues and, who-hoo!, one replied saying that they would deal with it in her absence.

I wonder how long that will take.

Meanwhile I'm not much looking forward to the revised building quote nor the schedule of the builder's availability. The cost of building materials has rocketed this year, there are no HGV drivers to deliver the wooden frames and steel joists I will need and huge numbers of construction workers have given up on this arrogant offshore island and returned to the EU. 

To round off the day, I failed a choir audition this evening. At least I wasn't surprised and I don't mind. One less thing to do.