I think I blog as a means of procrastination when I should be writing something else - like the edited scenes of my screen play - so I will make this post my last today and aim to procrastinate further tomorrow.
Part of the reason why getting my dissertation in and hitting the deadline was so exhausting was because of also taking work at a paper in Skegness which I'm rather enjoying although the travel to work time is one and half hours each way.
I must admit that I felt like a city fish out of resort and Fenland water as I didn't know much about the area. Now I know that fat people and smokers seem to like being beside the seaside very much because Skegness is full of them.
One of my first stories was about the Fenland hell road that is known as Hobhole Drain and where this poor woman came a cropper
I hadn't described the road properly and said it was on the A16 instead of it being a minor Fenland back road. I had to endure a right patronising telling off from the local chap who has made it his mission to finally get something done. I'm told the Parish Council has been on at the County Council for the last 30 years about it and despite it being a 60mph road, anyone driving more than 15mph will hit something and end up in that Drain.
The road has been described to me as the skin on a custard because the ecological nature of the Fenland roads means the drained earth beneath moves constantly causing humps, bumps and potholes to appear which the County Council says it is investigating by sending consultants down there to have a look.
The chap who is fighting so hard to have something done that will actually make a difference is furious. He says authorities spend far too much money on these consultants who then do nothing and the saga continues until another life has been lost.
I wish them luck with it. I didn't know the story above related to this road and when I read it, I spent the rest of the day depressed. I'm told by an excellent source that this lady's grief was made worse by the dramatisation and inaccuracy of the story picked up by a press agency that had to add a bit of glitter to make the sale.
On a happier note, I ended last week with a thank you from an old couple who came to see me to complain about their insurers. The couple aged 73 and 75 have been insured for 51 years and in all that time they have only ever made two claims.
They used to be insured with Lloyds TSB Insurance but the annual cost jumped so high the couple dumped them and went to More Than. They wanted to sell their bungalow by the sea but then found a leak was coming from a pipe under the bath in the small bathroom.
More Than told them to get a plumber who said he would have to pretty much demolish the bathroom to get at the pipe and they should check with their insurers that he could proceed with the work. More Than said yes. The work was done, the couple submitted their claim, they then got a letter from Lloyds TSB Insurance saying they would not honour it because the plumber had caused damage to the bathroom to get at the pipe.
The old people were shocked. They didn't want insurance with Lloyds TSB but got it anyway though More Than, and they thought they had done everything right. As they battled through various 1,2,3,4,5 options to speak to various people in call centres who would only ever give them a first name, they haven't had a bath since mid August and came into the newspaper for help in desperation.
I rang Lloyds TSB head communication bod who initially said they should have read the small print. I told him that wasn't acceptable. Half a day later and I received a call from someone else from Lloyds TSB saying they would look into the details and get back to me. By the next morning, another head bod in PR rang and said the old couple's claim would be honoured as a "gesture of goodwill". We are talking £150 after all and not a few million pounds!
I phoned the happy couple who couldn't thank me enough. They phoned at the end of the day to tell me someone had been in touch saying the insurance company would only pay for the leaking pipe and not the damage done to the bathroom to get at it. Grrrrrr.
I rang Lloyds TSB Insurance again and reminded them of their promise to "honour the claim" and I got the sense that there are just too many arms to this business and people who work in it who don't talk to each other but I'll have to wait and see the outcome when I'm back in Skegness on Thursday.
Meanwhile, I'll leave you with this pleasant view of a busy Skegness town centre in the height of summer - just in case readers of this blog decide it is their dream summer holiday location.
