When I was a kid I used to go on “community” holidays where we made our own entertainment: we played games and we sang songs and we went for walks and we made handicrafts. The highpoint of the holiday was always the “wide game” which was a kind of treasure-hunt involving adults disguised as wizards or aliens or some-such, and in order to get your next clue / piece of the puzzle you had to please the character by singing a song or doing a little dance or making a house out of twigs etc.

So now whenever I am faced with ridiculous obstacles I see the funny side and I laugh as I do the little dance I need to do to get what I want.

It's been a bit like that today. First I got a message from my internet service provider to tell me joyfully that they would have me up and running in my new home on 5th July. Well I will be on holiday before then and I need to do some online banking before going away so my first piece of the puzzle was to find an open branch of my bank. Happily Bedford has one of those (Henley does not). The lovely teller told me that I could even bring my laptop into the branch and do all my online banking securely there without having to occupy a teller and allow a queue to build up behind me. Hurrah! I would go back to the flat and fetch my laptop but on the way I would collect some more pieces of the puzzle.

Register with an NHS dentist, I have found one just down the road from my flat with a big sign outside saying “walk in and register”, so I tried that. I rang the doorbell and someone came out with a notepad and pen to ask my name and phone number. If they have a vacancy on their books they will call me within 24 hours to register me and if I don't hear from them I'll need to look elsewhere. Whoop!

Register with a GP. I had in fact tried this online prior to moving but if I couldn't use their mobile app I'd need to call in to the practice in person. Should have had a face mask. Tsk! Fill out these forms and return them to the practice with photo ID and proof of address.

Buy a railway ticket to get from new home to Eurostar on Saturday. Happily Bedford railway station still has a ticket office with a smiley person behind the glass so that was no problem at all.

Back to the GP surgery with all required paperwork plus laptop so that I could continue from there to the bank. The GP surgery was closed for lunch would I please return after 2pm, so I went to the bank. I logged onto the bank's free wi-fi without any difficulty but their wi-fi would not connect me to the internet. Hey ho, I'd have to use a teller after all. But no actually, the teller cannot make a one-off payment in the future, I'll have to come back on the day I wish to make the payment. Well much as I would love to do that I will be on holiday, so a complete fail there.

But the bicycle shop was on my way home so perhaps if I nipped in there and bought myself a nice pair of panniers I would be able to take advantage of the fact that the decent-sized Tesco is on my route home from work.

The electricity in the flat is Pay-As-You-Go, but it's a wee bit smarter than the top-up key I had in Chatham and my landlord had recommended that I call them and register this flat in my name, that way they will actually help me in an emergency. The upside is the fact that now they know I am over 60 I am a “priority” customer and they'll come out to help me sooner than some youngster, the downside was that they “reset” my meter wiping off the fiver that my landlord had so kindly put on it for me. No matter, I'll let him know to try and claim it back.

And finally back to the GP where I was able to return all the forms and where they were able to tell me that registration would take about three weeks. What perfect timing! I'll be just back from holiday.

So now I'm going to see if the guest wi-fi in the perfect pub will allow me to publish all these blips.

Overjoyed to find this hand-drawn copy of the London Tube map by Lucas at Bedford railway station. See! Who needs a smartphone if you have access to a four-year old and crayons!

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