Renewal time and overgrown apple trees...........-

Snowdrops are appearing in clumps all around the garden

I have started writing a few times, and then got bogged down with details. You may have the same loathing that I have of "renewal" times in the house. Insurance. Land-line contract. Mobile contract. Electricity. Car. You name the horrible things, they all have to be renewed, and because we now live in a society which requires you to compare, call around, haggle and then still get ripped off before you settle on a deal which is inevitably cheaper if you just pay on line/direct debit/in advance/while standing on your head etc etc, you lose the will to live. 

So every time I sit down here, I see the scrawled notes and figures  and comparison charts, and names of people I speak to, how long I have had to listen to their tinned music on hold, what they fail to offer and then I get up, go and make more coffee and walk around the garden. 

And get distracted by my apple tree. 

I discovered in my diary that my apple tree was pruned last year on 1 Feb. Hello, 1 Feb - and the apple tree is not pruned, and the friend who prunes it is out of the country. This does not suit. Cue another half an hour of googling how hard pruning an apple tree can be, and fishing out last year's photos of the pruned tree. It can't be THAT hard? Can it? Does it have to be done? Can I miss a year? Anyone want to come and prune it for me?

Then back to the phone line quest for light relief. We have the land line one sorted but I am less than happy re a £5 @month increase for which I get precisely nothing new. The mobile phone one is harder. My contract is up next week. I need to decide. And while I love my phone, multiplying the cost x 24 months is alarming. But then, I don't want to keep paying the same for a phone which is old when I can get another one, but only if I pay £25 up front, and why can't I have a free one when it says other places offer.......

And before I know it, I will be on the quest for cheaper car insurance as well. 

Why can't companies just reward loyal customers who don't want to change, and who just want to be given a good deal and not be ripped off??

Actually, it has been slightly perturbing to hear the young customer service children people say that they have never heard of the concept of cheaper rates for loyal customers ever. Hah. That would be because it died out before they were born, back in the days where we knew our bank managers by name. 

When the banks were run by experienced  men, not machines and little boys in shiny cars who like to holiday in the Caribbean 5 times a year. 

You may have gathered that I am viewing the world with a baleful eye today. I am. And now I am going to post this so I can stop having attacks of guilt whenever I see the rapidly mounting pile of half finished posts and last Tuesday's date on the last one published. The sun is going to shine tomorrow, so maybe I will start in the garden. Or the allotment. Well, I may go and look at it. Something.