Rightly or wrongly, we are creeping out a bit more these days. A question I asked on social media has been picked up by the BBC Moneybox programme – most exciting!
Firstly, I must tell you about us entertaining a couple of ladies from here in the village, who are both well into their 90s. To set the scene, they both know each other but haven’t seen each other for a couple of years. Rachel spotted the opportunity and we invited them around for coffee this morning.
Preparing for them took some doing. One has an electric wheelchair, festooned with gadgets as if it had been made by Q (think James Bond). We decided the conservatory was the best route into the Quirky Museum and a ramp was built for a step in the garden and a makeshift ramp placed to get into the conservatory. It was more of an obstacle course and a test of nerve as I watched nervously while thinking we were going to have a mishap to deal with. Our other guest was collected by car and she wobbled her way up the steps into the front door.
“Oh it’s bigger inside than I remember” said one
“When were you last here?” I asked
“About 50 years ago and I never did get to see the finished fireplace”
Feeling like we had become a tourist attraction we showed her the inglenook fireplace which was duly admired with lots of “Oooo’s” and “Arrrr’s”. We had polite chit chat, all very nice and then it developed into discussing far away places.
“Have you ever been to Syria?” asked one
“No” was our joint reply
“Well if you go to Aleppo you might be lucky and get taken to a special place where the tourists don’t normally go”
I was thinking that sounded a good reason not to go but she pressed on recounting all the wonderful sights which seem far too risky these days. Speaking of taking risks, our guest had been a school teacher and told us of school trips where she single handedly took 30 teenage school girls to London. All of the school girls wore their green school uniform and somehow managed to gain two more people during the trip who just thought they would go along for the ride. I thought she was very brave but she seemed to take it in her stride. You can call me a coward if you like.
I can still hardly believe I have had my ears pierced, now well into my second week and I can report everything is going well. So far only one friend has stopped in mid conversation to ask if my ears had been pierced. He was somewhat surprised. Everyone else has politely pretended not to take any notice or say anything. No doubt I have totally dumbfounded everyone through my bizarre behaviour!
With all of the news about rising energy prices, I had an idea when I last did a gas and electricity meter reading. Each month I have noted the reading accurately and uploaded onto our supplier’s website because it is good to know how we are doing and avoid any nasty surprises. Knowing we are all facing unprecedented increases in the costs, I wondered whether over reading the meters might be a good idea. This would have the effect of effectively buying electricity and gas in advance at a relatively cheap price.
So I asked the world of Twitter if this was okay and tagged the BBC Radio 4 Money Box programme. Then they got in touch. Then we agreed on a question I could ask for their panel of experts to answer. Then I recorded my question and within seconds it was there, courtesy of WhatsApp.
I gather from the journalist I will be breaking some rule. After all, if everyone did the same thing it could bankrupt an energy supplier. Otherwise it feels like we are stocking up, just like we buy loads of postage stamps before a price rise. So if you’re interested in listening to the programme, it will be broadcast at 12:04pm tomorrow, on Radio 4.