Monday 20 July 2026: Very grumpy

I know it’s hard to believe, but I was in a right grumpy mood on Friday.

The dog had been a complete pain in the butt since the workmen left on Tuesday. No one had come to see him or play with him or tell him how gorgeous he was or keep him entertained for two whole days and he was clearly bored out of his brain and feeling mischievous. He’s a very intelligent dog, we know that already. Now we’re wondering if we ought to get him an activity centre like the ones they make for toddlers. Because that’s what he’s being. A complete toddler.

Either that or it’s a full moon, or something. But if it turns out not to be a phase, we’ll have to get it investigated.

It’s hard work having to keep an eye on him all the time. He’s still exploring things, usually with his mouth. He’s still shouting at everyone he sees, because, of course, they should be coming to see him and not a single other soul who lives in the cul de sac. We have a terminally ill neighbour who is on palliative care right next door on the other side of the adjoining wall. The last thing he wants to be listening to is a boisterous dog. The next last thing he wants to be listening to is us yelling at said boisterous dog.

Aside from the dog being all me, me, me on Friday morning, I also fell out with one of my banks. Big time. A so-called traditional bank that used to be one of the best, it’s gone downhill far too quickly in recent years as it tries to keep up with its competitors. What the management seem to fail to understand is that people bank with them because it’s a traditional bank. It can’t compete at all with the new banking apps, so, in my opinion, the best thing the bank can do is what it does best and be a traditional bank.

They sent me a text, first of all, informing me that there had been some suspicious activity on my debit card and as a result they’d put a block on the card. A list of transactions would follow, and could I please confirm that they were all genuine. Due diligence and all that is great. But the payments they were querying were three payments to Amazon. Three very small payments, all under a fiver.

I’ve been making payments to Amazon for years and these were just three of those ebooks I bought last week on writing horror stories. I bought about nine of them, yet they only queried these three. And when I went to mark them as genuine, they’d all already been approved.

However, the other payment they were querying was my monthly payment to my web hosts. Another payment I’ve been making every month for eleven years. But they’d already declined it.

Why? Who knew? Because when I eventually got through to a real person, she said she couldn’t tell me, that it was a ‘random’ reason out of ‘very, very many’ that they weren’t able to investigate.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…Another text came through asking me to log onto the app, which I did, with difficulty, because the mobile signal here is very bad. I get online when I can and often get thrown off several times per session. I logged onto the app, and the same message was there. There had been suspicious activity and could I please mark the following transactions as either genuine or not.

And there they were, the exact same transactions I’d just authorised via text message. So I authorised them again, and still there was the one to my web host showing as declined. And I got a message to say that the payment would remain declined, even if I authorised it as genuine…

My first port of call was the help button on the app, which was the robot. Three times I had to tell the robot to let me speak with a person. Then while I waited for said person to respond, I detailed the issue: that the dodgy transactions were all authorised and would they please pay the one they declined.

The person suggested I contact the fraud department and get the transactions stopped…after I’d already said they were all genuine…This person ignored what I was saying several times until in the end I suggested they go back and read what I’d actually written.

While I waited, I looked for a contact number, the contact number that’s usually buried deep within the help function…but it’s buried so deeply now, it no longer exists. Yup, there is no number to call for this historically traditional bank. I asked in the chat for a phone number, but again, all they’d give me were the fraud line numbers. I didn’t want Fraud, I just wanted to speak to a person.

So I turned to my debit card and called the number on the back of that. Again, I had to tell the robot three times that I wanted to speak to a person, and it was this person who I eventually got who broke it to me about this so-called ‘bank policy’ reason for this specific payment that she couldn’t actually tell me because she didn’t know…and then she started to tell ME how I could put it all right again…by basically contacting the company who’s payment they decline FOR NO REASON and arranging a one-off payment for this month…

Ho, ho, ho…Did I mention I was already in a baaaaad mood? I told her how the bank had gone down the pan in recent years, how incompetent their robots were, and basically that while I knew it wasn’t her fault, she could stick the bank right where the sun doesn’t shine as I was closing all of my accounts with them. And I hung up.

I’d just started the process of closing the first account, the one with a hefty balance, when I got another alert saying I’d received a response on the app from my bank. I looked at it anyway, just to see what else they had to say, and whoever it was was apologising profusely, saying the payment had gone through as it had been authorised now, confirming they’d lifted the ban on my card, and telling me they were giving me 20 quid as a goodwill gesture.

That was the first thing that made me smile all morning.

I still continued closing my accounts with them. This account is my ‘out’ account. It’s the one with all the direct debits and standing orders, and the one my debit card is linked to if I shop with them. The scheduled payments would be a faff, but everything else was easy enough to transfer over to a different account.

I checked that the 20 quid had landed (it had), and put my thinking cap on, deciding that I could easily use one of the ‘pots’ in one of the other banking apps I have for all scheduled payments to come out of. I’d just have to transfer the details.

While all of this was going on, the internet guys came to connect us underground to their supply point at the end of our drive. Once they were done, they said they’d escalate the rest of our installation and hopefully bring it forward. We also tried to call the internet company, but they were permanently on music-while-you-wait. The phone didn’t even ring. So we gave up on that.

We went out to get my hair cut and to get the week’s meat, and while we were out, an email came in from the web host saying the auto payment had failed and could I please arrange an alternative method. I’d already moved all the money out of the savings account in the traditional bank to one of the apps, so I made the payment with that debit card instead.

If the traditional bank still pays it as well, at least I have faith in the web hosting company that I’ll get it back.

When we got back we had something to eat, and I went into my ‘den’ in the temporary office to crack on with work. The poet settled down to watch the golf on the telly when he discovered the dog had eaten all the way through our Sky TV cable. Our brand-new Sky TV cable…

And now he’s as annoyed with the dog as I was at the top of the day. Good. He’s had a taste of what it’s like now, 24/7. So, a good day all round. Not.

I took the dog into the office with me and closed the door, so he couldn’t do any further damage, and he went to sleep. While I was having my hair cut, the poet was taking the dog on a fairly long walk around a local park. And when I dragged him into the office with me, he was soon spark out fast asleep. Bliss!

I rattled off the above rant then turned back to the client edit I was proofreading. The printer isn’t connected yet, so I’m proofreading on screen and worried sick I might miss something obvious. Perhaps by the time I’ve finished, we’ll have internet and I can get back into the swing of work and emails properly and I’ll be able to send it back without any problems.

At the moment, though, I’m not holding my breath.

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