Dividends

I discovered a while ago that a certain Building Society was offering new customers a substantially higher interest rate on identical conditions.  I telephoned and was told to create a new account on line and transfer funds electronically.  Given my clumsiness with on-line transactions, I asked what other approach was available, and the advisor agreed to send me the necessary transfer form, which I duly filled and sent back.  Nothing having happened in the ensuing fortnight, I was not best pleased to receive a quasi-literate letter saying it couldn’t be done.  I found the email address of the CEO and fired off a polite snottygram.  I had a phone call next morning from a complaint handler saying she had received my email and was looking into it, and she called again today to say what was needed.  I’d to grit my teeth and set up a new account on line, not without ach und Krach, new password procedures and all the rest of it.  To transfer the balance I’d to call their head office and go through all the name, date of birth, inside leg measurement and colour of grandmother’s eyes interrogation, but at least the fellow was grown-up and friendly.  So my tuppence-three-farthings are now getting a slightly better rate of interest, they’re sending me £75 to help reduce my blood pressure and will calculate the interest I would have got had they given me correct information and done things right in the first place.  

This sounds rather similar to my earlier skirmish with a bank, and the lesson is clear: if buggered about, email the CEO, and stand by for a £75 ex-gratia payment.

I finally lost patience today with the San Marzano plants, and all bar the last three pots are emptied and on the way to becoming municipal compost.  I’d attempted to grow them in pots as I do successfully with the Sweet Olive variety.  Clearly a mistake: they are much more thirsty, and even after copious watering, natural and artificial, the pots I turned out today were bone dry.  I planted a couple of San Marzano cuttings in a raised bed, and wait to see if they do any better.

Seedlings and cuttings are doing well in parts: the aquilegia seedlings from this summer’s flowers will be ready to prick out in a few days’ time.

I took a zillion rosemary cuttings last week with a view to filling in the gaps left by the box tree moth caterpillars.  They ought to root within a couple of weeks if they’re going to, so watch this space.

Meanwhile, we’re getting the first flowers on eschscholzias that we sowed in the spring from an old packet of commercial seed, and we are harvesting seed from plants that self-sowed last back end.  I’m looking forward to saving seed from the tagetes, which have done exceptionally well this year, for the first time in containers.  

So, one way and another, I try to reap what I sow, though some efforts yield better than others….