Dull and damp...

...weather, that is, a return of wintery conditions that's not unknown in early March, even when we've had a better February than this year's was. No matter, we had a merry evening in the George and Dragon last night; it's the first time for a long while that Jane has felt well enough to join our socialising, so it was a great opportunity to catch up on many a thing.

The food was great, too, an amazing choice of pies, large or small portions to suit, and, praise be, decent chips. I'm pleased to report that the Crown has started trading again, so there is once more a choice of four eateries in Alrewas: the Jaipur Cottage (upmarket Indian), the William IV (now offering two for one lunches, but no recent reports on quality, which had been appalling) the Crown (just restarted) and the G&D (the best, but doesn't take plastic, YHBW*).

A gentle start this morning, then, with no encouragement to rise and shine from the weather and no particular programme in mind. We did a bit of shopping and then retreated indoors. With the upcoming Census in mind, I went onto their website to find out what we needed to do.

We are officially a Mobile Household (fair enough) and we need to get an extra form delivered to Elanor to fill in on the night. Can you order this online? Oh no, you have to ring the 0300 helpline and ask for one. I'm sorry to say that this wasn't a very reassuring experience. I got an "adviser" who seemed to be on her first day at work and had just had a book of instructions shoved in her hand.

I told her clearly what the situation was, expecting to be asked for the boat name and an address to which they could send the form. Having done ten minutes research on their website, I clearly knew vastly more about it than she did. I was put on hold three times and finally managed to give the address, even though she misheard the postcode at the first attempt.

(What part of Delta Echo one four,  two Sierra Xray is hard to grasp?)

Finally, she closed by saying that the forms won't be sent out until Monday, and if we haven't had ours after ten days or so, I should ring again. Highly confidence boosting. She then asked me to do a simple feedback survey. Right monkey, I thought, but it was a) automated and b) didn't work.

I had another look at the website, but guess what, there's no email address there, just a snail mail one.

The Office of National Statistics has contracted the process out to Lockheed Martin, and I've got a very bad feeling about it all.

The rest of the day has drifted by, rather. We're getting very low on coal, so I hope we can get some from Barton Marina when we pass by tomorrow.

*You Have Been Warned