What are you all up to
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Millie, you may recall that a young German girl on a motorised quad bike ran into our stationary car last year. Our insurer had it repaired, we paid the excess and thought that was the last we would hear.
Then in November we received a letter from Zurich Insurance in Germany accepting responsibility and after sending them our receipt we got our money back. Our own insurers were slow in asking for their outlay and consequently when my renewal fell due in February I had my premium loaded due to "Fault" claim! After much discussion they amended my record and the premium was reduced by £60, even though my no claims discount was protected. So they had loaded my premium due to their own ineffeciency!
I still moved as I still saved a further £50!
Having worked in insurance I know how the system works and 99/100 it's in the insurance companies favour.
Still annoying for you after finding the dent, which is why I try to find an empty out of the way spot to park in, only to find myself hemmed in. They're like bees around nectar.
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No charge for any bin collection here. Now you've frightened me 😐. Our city council stopped weekly black bin collection at the end of January this year and it's now fortnightly. That's fine with us as we rarely have more than one swing bin liner a week in there. Our brown bins have always been collected fortnightly and so now it's brown one week brown (you are able to have two brown) the next. We also alternative paper and plastic and cardboard and cans. Weekly food waste. Almost need a degree to sort out rubbish these days 😃.but I'm all for recyclying. Our brown bins are collected all year, they weren't in the early days but very soon went all year. £35 for a year doesn't seem bad compared to dump runs etc but I don't like the idea. How do they know you've paid? Is it worth the administration expense?
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Great news op went well, wish Mr H all the best.
Sorry to hear about the car though, it happened to me many years ago now, had to claim on insurance as damage was bad
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We understand that more and more councils are looking for ways to fill funding gaps ,I know from friends in Surrey they are charged £50 now it started at £35, we are only allowed one brown bin which is a fortnightly pickup as are the other bins black refuse and blue recycling all food waste that now goes in the brown bin is to go in with normall refuse from next month when starts and houses that have signed up will go on a data base and supplied with ID stickers for the bins ,We will have to see how much flytippng increases
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Our council introduced a £35 pa charge 2 years ago and Mr H won't pay so it is all bagged up and he takes it to the tip himself. The last of the big spenders.
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We took a hit on our XC90 that we traded in about 2 months back. We found a "bungle", actually 2 bungles,right beaide the fuel filler point on the side of the car when we washed it, we have no idea when it could have happened. It was just suddenly there. Really strange.
It probably knocked a few hundred off what we got as a trade in, the dealer did remark on it.
It was at least 1 meter above ground level, so we suspect some commercial vehicle, but we had hardly used the car around that time, so we could not think when it could possibly have happened.
After all, when you fill fuel you would be looking right at the area, yet we had noticed nothing. The dents were not exactly small either. So must have been very recent.
It will forever remain a mystery.
How can these drivers irresponible drivers sleep at night when they just damage another car and then drive off?
Other drivers are frequently reprehensible.
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Thanks Helen. I have my Florence nightingale hat on and lamp at the ready
I have to take the X Trail in for repair tomorrow as Mr H can't drive for a while. Not looking forward to it as I don't usually drive it. 
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Ours is fairly high up as well Kj so a commercial vehicle is suspected but where and when?
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Had a busy couple of days, mixed news, found out our next door but one neighbour had died, her cancer had come back.
Then met up with a group of friends for coffee this morning, found out that the husband of one of our group had had a heart attack and was very poorly, came home feeling really sad.
At least OH's blood test results were clear, so some good news.
Finished knitting scarf so posted it off to youngest son, rather late birthday present
just hope he likes it. Just booked a CL not far from Manchester for a short break in a couple of weeks, 
will get to see our sons new home and take in some of the peak district at the same time. 0 -
Oh yes the insurance companies are always the winners wherenext.
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Re bins......we have 2 recycling ones.....glass/plastic/metal and paper/ cardboard. collected every 2 weeks, alternating with the black bin for general rubbish and the green bin for garden waste. There is food waste too, but we have a waste disposal grinder so never have food waste.
There seems to be no limit here on the garden bins, we have 3! But mainly we only need one at a time since we got rid of the grass. If doing a big clear up we can fill several, but normally have only one filled every so often.
As we are away 3-4 months per year, we are not exactly overloading the system.
I would think, if our lot tried to charge extra for the garden bins, they would have a serious riot on their hands!
Our CT includes water and waste, this coming year we expect to pay a total of around £3650 +, up from £3100 this year.
A huge cost, easily our biggest bill.
Time these charges were based on income and number of people generating the rubbish.
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Had a good last day at Baltic Wharf. Managed to return to the museum and see the Staffordshire Hoard exhibition. Had a good look around the other displays, there is a beautiful gypsy caravan and contents on view. We walked down to the Welshback past the Old Vic where there are some very old taverns and got the water taxi for a trip up river and then back down past all the lovely boats to the site. Just listening to the roar from Ashton Gate tonight as Bristol play Norwich, home tomorrow!
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Sounds wonderful brue. I would love to see the Staffordshire Hoard.
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Yes, fortunately only a broken tooth, second one since Christmas!!! They seem to be going down like dominos!!! I suppose many people of my age were victims of the drill and fill brigade back in the sixties and seventies. Or perhaps it was the abolition of sweet rationing in the 50's
It's sort of coming home to roost now. It's usually not the old fillings but the tooth around the fillings. My dentist Rachael is pretty good and I am a lot less nervous about going than I once was although I don't think it would be a good idea to be rigged up to a blood pressure monitor whilst she was working!!!David
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Sounds like you've had a lovely few days Brue.
Safe trip home tomorrow.
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Looks as though MK Council are going to try that trick on us. They are tied into a weekly collection for all our rubbish until 2018 so they can't go to 2 week collections until then which would save a lot of money. Our Council Tax bill will be £1900 for next year. We pay more because we extended the house some years ago when they automatically put you up a band, then they changed the rules so the rate only went up when you sold the property. So my next door neighbour, despite have a much larger house, is still in the band below and I reckon has paid over £3000 less Council Tax than I have since his extension was built
David
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Mylo, if there was a problem then you really should have queried it with the Site Wardens there and then. They alone are able to answer your particular point with any degree of accuracy.
As much as we might like to, we could only surmise what the reason was
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In England, as you pay water and waste separately, how does your total compare to what we pay?
Our house is band H, the highest for up here, even though it only cost us £150000 in 1988. It was a self build so we did a LOT of work ourselves. So increasing the value while not costing us actual money, just a lot of hard work and no holidays away for about 10 years.
These days it is worth, at the most, about £500k, so the increase over a 29 year period is very modest compared to many places in England.
We do not want to move, so have no option but to accept the huge CT as a cost of continuing to live in the house we designed, built, and love.
It really does not feel fair. It is well over 10% of our pensions.
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Yes, I rang them at 2.45 p.m. and they didn't know at that stage. Then 20 minutes later, I got a call back to say that it failed the MOT. So they will now order the necessary parts and fix them tomorrow morning. It will all be completed by 10.30 a.m. at a cost of about £200. So I arranged with the car rental to return the car tomorrow at 9 a.m. They said that the existing charge covers up until that time.
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Very wet here this morning 😐. Choice of indoor jobs but none vital and can't seem to work up enthusiasm to tackle any. Maybe I'll find it when I've drunk my tea.
I hope those who underwent dental work are more comfortable today.
Malcolm hope you get your car back today and it's not too expensive. What was the problem this time? When our vehicles go for MOT we book a time and hubby waits and discusses with garage, we use the same one for cars and another, (because usual one can't accommodate motorhome but always goes to same garage) for years and have built up a rapport with them. Thus if it passes he comes straight home and if not discusses what/how/cost with them and sorts from there. Walking or catching the bus if necessary. Same with servicing. We couldn't afford further hiring of another vehicle. Did you not explain you needed it to get to work for a certain time?
Enjoy your day folks.
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We are the same with our local garage Bakers2, always use the same one and have got to know them well over the years. They will always discuss what needs to done if anything.Mind you OH always does servicing himself and checks over car before mot for anything obvious it could fail on. The mot guy at the garage bought our last tow car from us , he said he knew the car well.
Bit wet here to this morning, got to go out in a while, just drying off after dog walk.
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Helenandtrevor sadly we are not competent enough to do our own servicing 😐. But vehicles always get a thorough going over before MOT on the obvious things and generally we have an idea, usually from discussions with garage if tyres brakes are likely to need attention in the future, that all comes from rapport 😉, and as we do little mileage these days the guys (yes they are guys no gals in their garage not even their own daughters - too dirty a job 😂). We have a good enough relationship with them to phone and discuss if we have any concerns and they know the level of incompetence they are dealing with 😂😂😂 and advise accordingly.
As you can see not made much impact on the day. Have done some online banking and I believe we are going over to check motorhome as hubby aching from all the gardening yesterday so no decorating for either of us today 😆. Trying to say well take it for a run but meeting opposition!! Just thought it would be nice as still got nothing booked. Hoping to do so before the end of the month ANYWHERE will do really got withdrawal symptoms 😐
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Had our X-Trail MOT Monday just gone. Been an X-Trail X-pensive month.
About a month (or less) ago offside front coil spring snapped and ripped tyre in half. Decided to replace both front shockers as well as coil springs. With new tyre etc £500. Parts were dear.
Had a full service and MOT. I knew that it needed new front disc pads and that one of the callipers was likely to need replacing. Also had new fan belt and auxiliary belt replaced. New wiper blades also. Total cost £580. Again parts were dear.
The belts had been noisy from new on start up. Now silence. The car is nearly 12 years old but has done under 70,000 miles. Probably to replace with same would be around £3.5k at most. Quite happy to pay out though as it has been a good tow bus.
We take our cars to an independent one man garage. He bought his brother out a few years ago as the chap wanted to sell up and tour full time in a narrow boat with his wife. Whenever I call in there is always some fantastic classic car or track car that he is working on. This time it was a Classic 1965 AC Cobra. I talked with the owner and he had travelled almost 200 miles to use this garage.
I love looking over the cars he works on. When I was picking up X-Trail after the earlier repair he was working on a 1960s Mk1 Lotus Cortina. It was immaculate/
He does not do MOT but I leave my car there, it is serviced and he drives it to MOT garage and uses that chaps car to come back and swaps over later. I have used the same garage for 24 years and dread him retiring
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Only had one MOT fail in 25 years. However before OH moved in with me about 15 years ago I took her Nissan Micra in for MOT as she was able to bus to work and my daughter lived close to e and could give me a lift. It failed badly and was not worth a £300 in repairs. Dilemma, I did not want to faff as OH was loosing her job and we had loads of holidays planned. I used to be able to take over 12 weeks a year off. I ran what was then a singles group and we were due to go away a week later driving to Prague over Easter for a week with friends in April, May we were off to Malta, June Isle of Man, July in the caravan for two weeks and meeting friends for a long weekend at Bridgnorth, August Lindos, September with a group to Sitges.
What to do? I paid for the work on OH's car and got Adrian at the garage to make up a false bill for £60 for work on the car
Only told OH a few tears ago. Deceitful? Mois?
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