He's gone ...

... and I nearly didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I have to say that I've been spending much of my time unimpressed with the organisations who I've had to deal with over the Wedgie affair.

Insurance company: a serial non communication led to me finding out by accident - purely because I took it upon myself to call the garage he'd been taken to to be assessed - that he'd been declared a total loss and would be taken for salvage the next morning. I belted over to the garage to say my goodbyes (atmospherically in the pouring rain …) plus retrieve my tax disc, parking permit, map, stereo walkman and speakers - the latter 2 items I discovered to have been nicked ... Hey, it was cutting it fine and I was exceptionally cross with Direct Line for not keeping me up-to-date, but at least I did get to say goodbye.

The police: I still hadn't heard from anyone to tell me what had actually happened. Right at the beginning they’d said there had been a crash. OK - but I had questions: had there been another car involved, did anyone get hurt? I rang the number I had been given right at the beginning and asked to speak to my case officer. “Oh, looks like he's passed it to someone else in Croydon, I'll put you through”. 20 minutes on hold.

I finally managed to attract the attention of the operator who kept saying "sorry to keep you" approximately every 2 minutes and asked for the number that I was being put through to so I could try myself later. I tried on and off consistently from 0850 to 1530. I tried other Croydon station numbers who all pointed me back to that same number and said they were unable to give me any other method of contacting the officer working on my case. In the end I called the number I had rung first thing in the morning in the hope that they might be able to help. I was advised by an embarrssed sounding young officer that I had been given the wrong number (by 3 different people would you believe ...) by way of apology he offered to read me the report and promised to get my new case officer to ring with a full update.

The gist of it is: 3 men stole my car and were chased by a police vehicle. They tried to ram said police car and then ended up ploughing into a grassy bank. They then legged it and were chased on foot. 1 got away and 2 were caught; 1 of these was released with no charge and the other has been bailed to return on 3rd November. Apparently this was to allow time for more investigation and forensics work ... They'll have a job bearing in mind its already been taken for salvage! I pointed this out, at which point the officer said, well if he can’t keep track of his evidence then he’s going to lose his case isn’t he? My case I think you’ll find. As I say – I’m not impressed.

So, I await official settlement, grapple with the forms and leave you with a picture of Wedgie from the side where you'd almost think there was nothing wrong with him ...

The other side's not so good though and I can't bear to show you rest ...

Back on the trail

Nope, not the Inca Trail for which sadly training has been a bit haphazard of late - the falling over illness (which I'm still not quite over I don't think), not having a car to get out and do a proper walk etc; no, rather the trail for somewhere else to live.

As the house is still not sold, I needed to extend the tenancy on the flat. However, I don't want to live here anymore - I don't feel safe on my own, there's something dodgy going on at the pub across the street, someone was knifed in a gang related incident just opposite the gate to my flat and then there's the whole Wedgie thing ... My tenancy was set to run out at the end of October, so I figured that as I'm not here at the end of November and therefore won't be here to move out, I would just steel myself and extend to the end of December .

Well I found out last weekend (just before I got the letter telling me I had to pay to release my stolen car from police custody) that I can either extend to the end of November (which is no use to me) or next March ... I really don't want to still be here next March.

So I'm back on the flat trail. I've spent a couple of nights this week on viewings and spent most of yesterday doing the same thing. At least I'm getting a lot of walking in!

I've decided to look at various areas of Surrey. Not because I work in Epsom (heaven forbid!), but because I have some friends in that area, its easier to get to visit my sister, its closer to my mate in Windsor and I can quickly get to country side. I particularly like Kingston - close to Richmond Park, Kew Gardens, Hampton Court Palace, good shopping and only 30 mins into Waterloo for the City stuff. Not sure I can afford it though!

I had 1 complete wasted journey (Wednesday night) where I scrambled out of work to get to Norbiton for an appointment at 6.30, only to get a call at 6.25 to say that the flat had been let. Sigh. So I hung around on the streets to see the second flat at 7pm. General feel of this particular area wasn't good - I didn't really feel comfortable, the flat had no parking and was right on a bus stop. When I finally got to see the flat I was frankly shocked. It had been described as a large one bed flat. Curious use of the term large ... You could have fit the whole flat into the living room of my house and they wanted £750 pcm. Suffice it to say I didn't take it!

Saturday was a better day - looking in Kingston again. The first flat I saw was beautiful - immaculate, lovely kitchen, somewhere to park a car, quiet street and 15 mins walk to the station. However, whilst it was a large 1 bed conversion, because of the configuration of built in cupboards, chimney brests and radiators, I couldn't work out how I was going to fit my furniture in ... Plus it seemed to be a lot of money for just one bedroom.

The second flat unfortunately had been let which left me with 90mins to kill while waiting for my next appointment. So I used it as an opportunity to check out the shops! Of course I didn't spend anything, but I had a good old mooch and a bag of chips (what a treat).

I walked to the next appointment which turned into a comedy 60 mins. I met a completely nuts agent called Shelly who called me dahhling and lovey at every turn and couldn't manage to get the flat open that I was going to view. She pushed and shoved the key, but to no avail. I offered to have a look and once in front of the lock could see that there was something stuck in it so the key was never going to go in. There was however another flat in the same block, which whilst not as nice as the one I was supposed to be seeing would give me an idea of the layout and the size etc. So we viewed that flat and it was huge. Two big bedrooms, large living room and kitchen and only £15 pcm more than the one bed I'd seen earlier in the day.

Anyway, we agreed that I would go back on Monday night to see the correct flat once she'd sorted out the lock and by way of apology she offered to give me a lift back to the station. She regaled me with tales of walking in on copulating couples, people who said they wouldn't be in but were snoring under the duvet during the viewing and the time she chased after a prospective tenant in her car who was supposed to be following her to a viewing on his bike but they had got separated. When she finally flagged him down she realised she had been following the wrong cyclist who accused her of stalking him - "Well they all look the same in those hats dahling ..."

We were just coming the end of a road where a friend of mine lives when she lurched to a halt and said - "I've just remembered I've got a 2 bed in that road there - would you like to see it? It would be a shame for you to have come all this way and not see anything ..."

So we raced off to the office (literally - 50 year old woman racer ...) and she picked up the keys and we viewed the flat. Its lovely, but I really don't know if I can afford it. There is a garage for a car, the kitchen is great, there's plenty of room for all my furniture, its in a nice quite road which is 10 minutes walk to Kingston Gate of Richmond Park one way, Kingston Station and the cinema in another and the river in another.

The agent thinks that the landlord might take an offer as "he's very fussy" and "he'd rather do an offer for the right tenant", apparently he thinks anyone that works in IT is great, so I've got brownie points there - I'm also a woman, so I'll be tidy ... Anyway, I've made an offer which is less than he was asking including the garage (which he wanted more for ...). I have no idea if he'll take it, but I'd love to live there. We'll see ...