Tales of the Unexpected

American writer and humorist Marcelene Cox once said, “A vacation frequently means that the family goes away for a rest, accompanied by a mother who sees that the others get it” and for me the long wet school summer holidays have been no exception.

Over the past two months I have,

·        Cooked, cleaned and laundered for a household which has, on occasion, swelled to include an extra dozen people.

·        Escorted, dispatched and collected anything up to six passengers at any one time for delivery to a variety of destinations.

·        Shopped, chopped and packed vast quantities of picnic food for children, grandchildren and a full complement of adults.

·        Trawled, surfed, scrutinised and visited a plethora of venues to amuse both visiting family members and our offspring.

I have also,

·        Purchased and sewn fifty name tapes into my daughter’s new school uniform.

·        Made countless visits to my eighty five year old mother.

·        Assumed the role of appropriate adult for innumerable sight tests, dental checks and haircuts.

·        Sourced, priced and pondered over inordinated volumes of second hand English and Creative writing books for my sons university reading list.

·        Read, researched and commented on numerous articles exploring the ongoing global financial crisis

And,

·        Written, posted and tweeted several pieces for my Life After Debt blog.

However, because family commitments have pushed me close to the point of overload during the past nine weeks, I have not, until now, registered there has been a great deal I haven’t done.

I have not,

·        Endured repeated demands for payment from our creditors

·        Written a single letter concerning our precarious financial predicament

And nor have I,

·        Received a long overdue response from Lloyds Banking Group, HBOS or the Financial Ombudsman’s Service adjudicator with regard to my over valuation complaint.

Grateful, in some respects, to have been free of all debt fighting angst throughout the school break, it has not, however, been a summer without results.

I have,

·        Received many supportive and constructive comments on my posts

·        Acquired a mounting number of new Life After Debt followers every week

·        Had my Great Expectations post retweeted by several readers including Occupy Wall Street

And,

·        Been invited by Huffington Post Live to discuss LIBOR manipulation with former Minister of Labour for the Clinton administration, Robert Reich.

Like Marcelene Cox I believe, “No one knows his true character until he has run out of gas, purchased something on the instalment plan and raised an adolescent” and as one who has already raised my fair share of adolescents while simultaneously dealing with a million pounds worth of unpaid instalment plans, I am amazed to discover not only have I been heard on both sides of the Atlantic but my previous efforts have self fuelled during a period when my personal reserves were close to empty.

Here’s hoping “true character” might eventually reap similar success in my hitherto fruitless communications with the banksters at HBOS.

But,

As ever, I shall not be holding my breath.