gothams3rdrobin | Another week, another set of workmen....

I had plans for today, until I remembered that it was today the Council have authorized maintenance to be done on the gas pipes around here. Not only does this result in a brief disruption to the gas supply - which I can live with - but for some unknown reason they also want to move my gas meter out of the cupboard by the front door, all the way to the cupboard in the kitchen where my boiler is.

Understand that, when they built the council houses in this estate, they designed them with the intention of the meters being viewable through special glass bricks. In theory this negates the need for the meter readers to push a card through your door, should you not be at home. Of course, in the fifty years since then, this has been rendered useless in pretty much every instance. But even so, that's a hell of a distance to have to move the damn thing *grumps*

They've pulled up several of my patio slabs to lay down new pipes, and they're currently digging up the grass outside too to make a connection to wherever the gas mains is. You can imagine how upset Rowan's gonna be to find the garden completely unusable for the next however-long.

I'm also annoyed because I had to order a new bank card today. I went to check my balance in town this morning, but the machine was unable to read my card so I had to go speak to one of the personal bankers. Turns out those little chip-and-pin card readers at various establishments have been known to scratch through the magnetic strip, rendering the card useless. This is what has happened to mine - quite severely, in fact. So I have to wait for a replacement card *sighs* At least I managed to get some money out yesterday, though I haven't used the card since so I'm puzzled why it's suddenly broken on me today.

Anybody got any recommendations for a good kind of pillow? I need to replace all mine, and I would rather not buy cheap hollowfibre again 'cause they go flat as a pancake pretty quickly. One of them's completely torn into lumps. I'd also rather not get feather pillows, 'cause I've had them stab me in the face before now. And Mam's tried a memory-foam pillow recently but it's apparently not that good.

Roll on the arrival of my new bed! *waits impatiently for Argos Direct to call and arrange a delivery date*