annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meh. I'm bored with moving now. Not bored with the idea of the new flat, but with all the titting about required and most especially with having to keep the fucking house looking good for the landlady to bring prospective tenants round. She's being quite decent about it in that they're not taking students or young sharers because of dear Ann next door, who is such a sweet kind woman, living on her nerves at the moment and dreading the return of endless loud music. But this is an expensive house for a family, especially as they've now increased the rent, so there's been a stream of bloody people through, always preceded by Landlady. She comes early for a bit of a chat, then shows them round while I make myself busy. As this is a small house I can hear her, again and again, telling them (repeating it when she comes to the kitchen), that it will be professionally cleaned after I leave. Yeah, yeah, bored with that. It's not that fucking dirty. You should have seen it an hour ago. I don't like it this tidy, anyway, so fuck you all. Not you, dear reader, them, looking at my home and saying nice things but never calling back to rent the fucking place. I've also discovered that I won't be able to park within a mile of the flat without paying stupid money for at least a year. I can't remember if I've written about this already - I had assumed there'd be a way round it and not thought of it much till today, when I had a sudden flash of reality about what it will be like without my car. There's a resident's permit system, according to which parking zone your home is in. The council tried to bring one in here a while ago, but we got organised (via facebook), fought it, and won, so it's still free here. While I was busy taking and posting pictures of the dustmen's lorry, easily reversing down between the two rows of nose to tail parked cars, the bloody council were changing all the rules in the rest of the city. I can't believe I was so casual about it when flat-hunting, but there you go. I thought I knew the deal, but it changed quite a while ago. The new place is right in the centre of the city, where the houses are tall and spacious, perfect for multiple occupancy, but no space between them. Built for people who would keep horses and carriages in the mews and send for them when necessary. So parking's mayhem. There's a waiting list of 'at least' a year for a permit and you need proof of car ownership and God knows what else, all registered at a property within the zone, to even get on the fucking waiting list. At the top end of my road, it changes to another zone, because the houses are suddenly two storey semi-detached, so much lower occupancy. Still residents permits, because it's easy walking distance to the city centre shops and the railway station, so you need one to have any chance of finding a space at all, but no waiting list. Still need all the proofs of residency and car ownership, but they hand it to you over the counter when you bring them in. I thought I might be able to get a permit for that zone, as I live so near it, but no chance. Dodgy nephew has recently moved into this zone and when I met him round at Sis's the other night, he explained to me (far too quickly for me to catch all the details), that I need to change the address on all my car documents as if I was moving into his address. When I have them back, I can take them down to the office and get a permit. Once I have one, I can move about the city and just exchange it for wherever I live and get it changed at once, over the counter. It may come to that, but not as my first option. Ach, not at all. I feel guilty enough when I'm not doing anything dodgy. Now I'm going to watch a Melvin Bragg documentary about Steinbeck, apparently showing how what he described in the 30s is relevant again today. Bound to cheer me up. Or not. There was art class too, but it was part two of a project started last week, which I missed. I wasn't expecting that - it wrong-footed me and I took a disappointing amount of time to gather my wits. Meh. 11:38 p.m. - 22.11.11 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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