gothams3rdrobin | You know things are gonna go badly when....

You go to meet workmen at 9am...and they're there, ready to start at 8.55...

Should have known it was too good to be true.

That is pretty much the only thing that went well today. We did very little of what we had scheduled.

I'm supposed to get a decorating allowance, in the form of vouchers. I was told by the guy who showed me the flat that this would either be there when I signed for the keys - no surpise that it wasn't - or it would be there to collect a few days later. When I signed for the keys last monday, I was told to contact them again on wednesday and they should be in.

For various reasons, I haven't managed to go to the Housing Office to pick them up. So we called in this morning to collect them on our way to the DIY store.

Guess what? Yup - they don't have them. So they have to order them again - which means we can't get much done 'cause they're not exactly redeemable, y'know? And I can't afford to go buy paint and paper as well as carpet, even if they were.

There's no carpets down on the floors in the flat right now so - as I just mentioned - I had to go buy some. This I was dreading 'cause carpet's not cheap and the rooms are a decent size.

Went to one place this morning who quoted me over £400 for three of the six rooms in the house (not including the hall) on the basis of about £7 per square metre, and advised I would probably have a heck of a lot of wastage.

Thanks, but no.

Next place we went to, quoted me just over £300 for carpeting for the living room and two bedrooms, and special vinyl flooring for the kitchen, bathroom and separate water closet.

Guess who I bought my carpet from....

Now all I need is the self-assembly laminate flooring for my tricky, L-shaped hall - carpet in there would be a nightmare.

After that we picked up a new bed and scratch post for my cat Symba, some bathroom shelving and some basic cleaning utensils - broom, mop etc.

After that, we went looking for fabric so that Mam can make me some curtains and window-nets. I found some quite nice fabric, but the prices....to make a pair of curtains for my living room would have been about £50...

I have no idea about maths at all, so I really couldn't grasp why we needed to buy such massive peices of cloth...sure I know you have to make them slightly more than big enough to cover the windows, but my head just couldn't get around it....and the costs were seriously getting me down.

When I got back to my parents place, I began phoning around to sort out my gas, electric and water supplies. Iesu Grist I miss when everything was nationalised and you got your 'leccy from Swalec, your gas from British Gas and your water from Dwr Cymru....

I had to phone two separate companies to find out who supplies my gas and electric (water only comes from one supplier around here still), to find I'm supplied with both by 'London Energy' - whoever the hell they are. So I call them, and they see that yes I am getting the gas from them, but not the electricity. So I give them the gas meter's readings, and call Swalec to nominate them as my 'leccy supplier.

I then run into a hurdle when they tell me that, because they're not the current supplier, it's gonna take twenty-eight days to sort out the paperwork and change the supplier over. Naturally I freak, as I have no power in the flat at all and we're supposed to be moving in pretty much now - I'm actually taking a small risk not being there till the end of the week, as you never know if an opportunist or squatter might call by now that the shutters have been removed.

So the advisor at Swalec tells me to call London Energy back and discuss it. So I do, and this new advisor calls up the account for the electric with no problems at all! *headsdesk* This has, by now, taken an hour. And I cannot stand 'phones due to my stammer - which gets worse when I'm nervous or flustered.

Still, done now. They're coming to reset that damn token meter - hate the bloody things - on thursday, which is when I start moving in the furniture, and the Gas payments are sorted. Phoned the water board and set up a direct debit there too - nearly swore when she told me how much! £48!! And my gas installments are only £15, as is my contents insurance which I set up before I left this morning.

I even managed to get up the wherewithal to call the Inland Revenue and update my tax credit details.

Carpets should arrive wednesday, and I'll probably not get the painting started till then - which seriously sucks as I was hoping to get that finished before the flooring. My friend is calling by that day, as it's her day off, and will be literally handed a paint roller and sent in the direction of the nearest interior wall.....

Doesn't help that it's my penultimate class in college that night too....

I still need to call the Council to sort out my council tax bill, and I need to buy my television license. Once I know how much that's all gonna cost, I can work out if I can afford to sign back up with the cable company for the phone/digital tv/broadband, or if I'm gonna have to just settle for a poxy phoneline and use the canteen computer at work :-(

May even have to stick to just my mobile phone for a while. Again. Hated that last time.

Rest assured, my day has sucked. I have pictures of the flat in it's current state - I even resized them to a decent size, but I can barely see right now so I will post them another day.