Tuesday 9 June 2026: Banks!

We had such a lovely, surprise weekend away in the campervan. Castleton in the High Peak is one of our favourite places and it used to be one of our regular destinations. We thought the camp site was really nice and we’ve added it to our will-go-back sites.

But it was exhausting! And on Monday, I slept in! I had such a lot to do as well.

First job was moving everything into the one bank account so I could send it over to the solicitor in one easy move.

Unfortunately, it still wasn’t an easy transaction, I had to jump through so many hoops and had to contact both the solicitor for confirmation of the bank details (as the verification was seeing 3 different versions of the same bank account), and the banking app help chat (to make sure I’d sent everything I needed to). When they said they couldn’t actually see any attachments from their end, I contacted customer services, who walked me through everything. Especially after the chat techie asked if I have trouble using technology… 😡

Yes, customer services had received my photographs of the documents they’d requested in the end because I couldn’t ‘see’ the documents they required on my phone (banking apps…). Well, I could *see* them, but they were greyed out and I couldn’t attach them. So I sent them photographs of the documents on the desktop monitor instead, which were really poor quality.

Well, the customer services chap could *see* them and the detail, but to make sure there would be no come back, he sent me an email I could reply to with the necessary documents attached, and I attached the actual documents and some much better quality screenshots. He still couldn’t see the documents, though. He could see them there, but they wouldn’t open. And it was me who realised that they needed to be pdfs and not Word or Google documents.

To make sure it all went through smoothly, though, he confirmed that he could see the necessary information and passed it along to be ‘escalated’. I thought it would take all day, but it took minutes, literally, for the message to come via the app on my phone. And that was when I saw I’d sent them too much. Only a £350 deposit, but even so…

The solicitor had asked me to send him a copy of my statement showing the transaction, so when I sent that over, I also sent bank details for the £350 refund to be sent to. And again, within minutes, someone who I presume was in finance at the solicitor sent confirmation that funds had arrived.

Well, phew! That was something. And if I was going to make a mistake, I’d sooner send them too much and have them send it back, than send them not enough and have it slow down the process even further.

Once all emails were sent and the money end was done with, for the day at least, I turned to yesterday’s blog post. And once that had been published, I started today’s. If I didn’t, I would have forgotten everything that had gone on and looked at my diary wondering what I’d been doing all morning.

I wanted to get some work done before having to leave to go to the dog sitter’s for the puppy’s meet-and-greet, so I opened up the proofreading and did a few more pages. Before long, though, and after we’d eaten, it was time to cross town. When we move, we’ll be much closer to her, which is why I chose her in the first place. But at the moment, she’s still 45 minutes away, through school traffic.

Before we’d even set off, an email came in from the solicitor saying they’d arranged the refund for that overpayment and it would hit my account in around 3 days. That was a nice surprise, actually, because usually solicitors pay any money due to us after completion, not before. I thanked her, sent a message to the dog sitter letting her know we were on our way, and off we went.

Alfie had a lovely meeting, where he met the dog sitter and her own dog. She had 4 dogs in a different room too, 2 that were due to be collected, and 2 that had been dropped off early. And as 2 of them were females and in season, it was best to leave them in a different room while we were there as Alfie still has all of his bits.

Then it was back home via the new village to see how long it will take from there. (15 – 20 minutes.) We ate again when we got back, and I had another good session with the proofreading before I had to finish today’s post and schedule it, close down, and make a pudding and some cakes. We’re still using up what’s in the cupboard so we’re transporting as little as possible when we move.

Today should be a good, head down go at the proofreading. I also have the final week of videos to watch for the making a living with novels workshop.