No Claims Discount

I'm one of the those lucky people who have well over 9 years no claims discount and was particularly "chuffed" when our yearly insurance quote for our new car was only £126 fully comprehensive..... Yes it's sad but true "Duran Duran" is being retired.... So logically when we insured the new car we thought we would just let the insurance run its course with "Duran Duran" then SORN the old lady and decide what to do with her when the time came.....

Oh no..... not with our new insurance company culled from the GoCompare website..... Apparently even though I have over 9 years no claims discount they cannot accept the discount unless the original insurance policy which sports the 9 years NCD is cancelled !!! Furthermore if we don't cancel the policy and transfer the 9 years NCD our premiums will go up to £94 a month !!! or basically half of what it would cost a spotty 17 year old to insure his 13 year old Citreon Saxo chav mobile with Halfords speakers and body styling kit .... complete with go faster stripes....Or as it's known locally around here..."What's that car doing upside down in that field on that bend ?"

Which brings me to what exactly is a No Claims Discount ??? ..... by the very make up of the words used in it's description, to me it was purely that the driver had made no claims to an insurance company for a period of years..... No it's not......it seems the NCD dies with the car unless you transfer it to another vehicle... Now correct me if I'm wrong here but most cars require a driver and it is the driver who controls the vehicle not the vehicle.... so surely the fact that a driver hasn't hit anything should be the deciding factor not if the car has ???? It's madness

So things are not looking good for "Duran Duran" she may be retired sooner than we thought she was going to be......it's ironic really we had just bought two new front tyres for it as well ......

The only other bit of news was a particularly vicious D&V bug first cultured and introduced by Freya who re-enacted this scene very admirably the other day in the front room.... then I succumbed to it last night except I only suffered the D bit not the V bit..... but it did feel as if I had emptied the contents of several car batteries into my stomach.... it's viciousness was only exceeded by the relatively short duration it lasted....and when you only have two Gaviscon tablets in the house ...you suffer horribly...... we shall see who it fells next..... I awoke this morning after a very bad night and felt as if I had been run over (several times) by a road roller .... but thankfully now all systems seem to be returning to normal and running nominally

Well that's the tax return filed online

I have to admit it was pretty painless and far easier to fill it in online than the reams of paper you usually get in book form from HMRC. They had most of my details already filled in which saves a lot of writing and the good news is I've overpaid my tax in 2008 so we are due a refund :) it's all good....

The endless finding a job routine is still ongoing, I have noticed that there are a lot more openings appearing on the various websites I frequent and the job market is slowly creeping back to the outer reaches of Wales.... We will see..... maybe we are crawling out of recession faster than expected....

I've also declared all out war on the mouse population the death toll is rising and Roxy's dried food pack is remaining remarkable full these days albeit suspended above the toilet with strimmer cable to keep them off it, and a gauntlet of cunning and extremely hazardous traps laid for the unwitting rodents.... if the mouse traps don't get them the toilet bowl does .... Muah hahahahahaha.....

The only other thing I have got remotely excited about was the new version of Picasa from Google which now has face recognition built in :) basically you teach it who is who just once .....then when you import your pictures it recognises them and files them accordingly ..... it's quite clever really and it took up at least half an hour of my day yesterday ..... yawn

Here comes round two

See that big splodge with the red centre.... that's heading right for us...it's the Met Office rainfall radar map for the UK..... I reckon it's going to hit us in about two hours and by the slow speed it's creeping across we will be snowed on for about 5 or 6 hours maybe more .......apparently it's going to bucket down with the snow when it hits.... Ahhh well bring it on...it can't get "much" colder...who knows maybe a bit of snow in the air will raise the temperature a bit

I'm getting pretty sick of this white stuff now... I haven't fallen on my backside yet but it's only a matter of time.... We are also supposed to be getting a heating oil delivery soon .... it had better be soon we are running the boiler on fumes and hope as it is and the house is hovering around igloo temperature as it is....