8 March (Part 1) - Excuses, excuses
Life in general and maintaining Bonkers too easily fall into arrears.
This is a mini-rant about it and an apology to those
awaiting emails to be answered. You don’t have to read what follows.
Sometimes, particularly in the Summer and the months before and after
Christmas, there is a dearth of Bexley Council news and at other times there is a deluge.
Right now there is not a huge deluge although it will build up during the approach to the May elections but for several months past
there have been three days, occasionally four, each week when there is no time
to fire up the computer at all. This is becoming quite a problem and there are several emails
originated by this website awaiting a reply and two other large websites I manage.
Fortunately neither of those need daily attention.
On Bonkers there has been lengthy correspondence on an HMO. The occupants are
allegedly disruptive, damage property and keep everyone awake. The usual stuff
one might fear if the house next door becomes an HMO. I have literally years of emails
which appear to prove that Bexley Council is not in the slightest bit
interested. To be honest I do not think Bonkers can help. Bexley Council is shameless.
There is another involving a bowling green and parking which I have not had time to really look at yet. And
some less complicated ones too.
It is slightly annoying to have readers querying my assertion that Bonkers takes
a great deal of time to maintain. I started
yesterday’s budget report before 9 a.m.
and it didn’t go on line until after 2. Listening to the Council meeting,
deciding which things are worth reporting, summarising it and correcting the
typos takes ages. If quotations are condensed for brevity one must be absolutely
sure that the nuances are maintained. Several Councillors who spoke were not
mentioned at all because no one wants to spend more than five minutes reading a
blog, but one still has to listen to them to be sure. If someone can do it
quicker they are welcome to try.
In the old days when there were six of us behind Bonkers it was easier.
The budget report was more than five hours of my Saturday gone and the meeting is only half covered.
As one gets further into one’s eighties there is the inevitable tendency to only have younger friends. They seem unable to
understand that life slows down and complain that their ‘helpful’ suggestions
may be cast aside for lack of time. Time to meet them becomes almost impossible
to find and I think only one of them knows about Bonkers.
Gardening and house maintenance take a back seat and I don’t like living in a
tip so the weekend is often clearing up time. It is frustrating that there is
never time to keep an eye on investments. Probably the largest monetary cost of running Bonkers is not domain
registry fees and the like but not keeping one’s savings in the right place.
And I have
renewed my war with Thames Water. My assessed bill for the coming
year is less than 2025/26. I asked them to justify 25/26 at the time and they told me they
would not correspond with me. I have asked again with no response. It looks like
I shall have to leave my garden tap running 24/7 again in protest.
Actually the water main serving my road runs under my front garden. Hmm. Now
there is an idea!