Goodbye London!

So the time has come and I've moved from London home. If I had any more possessions at all it wouldn't have fitted in the car. It was dangerous enough as it was. The local children were quite excited at the sight of me with my jam packed vehicle and got involved, helping to post coat hangers into the crevices between the jumble. Just as I  was about to leave, one of my housemates reminded me that I also own a large vase, 2 casserole dishes, a cake tin and a saucepan. Disaster!

I drove with the uncomfortable feeling that I might kill myself off during the journey. I had just as many blind spots as I did clear ones, such was the amount of baggage in the car and so I did the whole journey without changing lane. As motorways merged and split off the M25 I found that the lane I was in changed and so when in the slow lane I settled behind drivers at 50mph and when I was in the middle lanes I enjoyed driving at 70mph. Basically, my driving style was more flexible than my choice of lane!

I felt sad as I travelled. It hit me for the first time that I'd given everything up. I'm in just the same position now as when I first graduated (not that I want to engage in a game of one-upmanship against my past self!). To make matters worse 'London calling' then came on the radio. I'm going to miss the city so much! However, when I walked in through the front door it was lovely to see mum and dad. Mum had cooked supper and being catered for felt like a real luxury. After eating we watched a film together, packed in 3 in a row in the sofa, all holding hands, such was our happiness at being reunited. I do very much appreciate these elements of being at home. I really ought to ask them about how they feel about my being here, giving up everything and leaving my job...I dread to think about the answer!

National benevolence is confusing HMRC

It’s so hard to tax my car! It’s almost as if the government don’t want me to (actually, this is probably true, then they can fine me for not having done so). It may not help that all my post comes to me via my parents' house and so has to be rerouted. This could be how I came to miss all the reminder letters. Their online service was the obvious way to renew my tax disc, but as is always the case with HMRC, I couldn't login because they (as always) had posted me some set of essential and confidential number that I couldn't find. Then on the phone I was told that the code I’d (by then) received wasn't the code I’d received (which it obviously was, as I wouldn’t have got it any other way). It was due to expire within 24 hours of the call anyway so I went to the post office to speak to a real human and they told me they couldn’t do anything unless I could prove ownership of the car. WTF?! As if I’d go to such great effort to tax someone else’s car!! What kind of crazy benevolent culture do HMRC think we live in?! It must be nice in the UK tax HQ.