Thanks ABBEY!! and thanks Royal Mail.

Once again the Abbey has done me proud and rewarded my 15 years of loyalty as a customer by completely screwing up my finances whilst I'm 10000 miles from home.

My tax bill is due at the end of this month, so I log on to send them a payment as a dutiful tax paying UK citizen, but the Abbey has stopped access to my online account. It's too early to call them so I try to withdraw some rent money from my account and the ATM swallows my card, first time, no usual 3 strikes then you're out.

This cheeses me off a bit. So I phone them expecting that they have yet again put a stop on my account because of suspected fraudulent activity, despite the fact that we have been through this on 3 previous occassions in the past 5 months. But no there is no problem with my account, must have been a faulty ATM. This is not much solace as this means the card has been destroyed and they will have to issue a new one.

This in itself would be a big enough pain in the arse but I've already had problems with the Royal Mail forwarding me stuff here. So, in desperation I call the ATM company and they say that there is a miniscule chance of getting my card back, for miniscule read non-existent.

I call Abbey again and ask for options for transfering money here and paying my tax bill over the phone. They will do it but I will have to offer up my first born child beforehand. I ask again why I can't just have access to my account online and suddenly the bank/mail conspiracy reaches new heights. You see, I rather stupidly called the bank last week and asked them not to send anything by mail until I got that problem sorted, by which they took me to mean that I had lost my debit card and wished them to send me out a new one!!!???!!

So they cancelled my card without telling me, are sending my new one to Australia despite (actually because of) my instructions not to send anything here because of the shoddy service by the Royal Mail. And my online banking is linked to the new card which may or may not arrive.

The mail re-direction is another story but as I'm on a bit of a rant I might as well give some details on that too. Initially I was having mail redirected to Ian in Perth, this worked fine initally but Ian could only send mail every 6 weeks or so once enough had built up to justify the costs and hassle. So, to remove both these hassles from him I asked the Royal Mail just to forward stuff here instead. Easier, quicker and cheaper for both of us.

No mail for 5 weeks and I called them. They initiated an investigation and, guess what, 5 days later I received a letter saying that there was no problem and all was fine, I'm just not very popular. A few days later and still no mail so I called again. I was then told that there had been a problem and mail would now start coming, but I should phone everyone who'd sent me mail out meantime (probably a mere two dozen phone calls to the UK, not counting the people who might have sent mail that I didn't know about, so a possible visit to a psychic to help there), and get them to complain to the Royal Mail. Thus, the phone call to my bank and the subsequent cock-ups from there.

Miraculously enough some mail from 5 weeks previous suddenly appeared, two letters. I still have no idea where it had been. But nothing has arrived since.

So thanks for that both of you, thanks a lot, now I'm on the other side of the world with no access to money unless I cough up for charges which were caused by both of your incompetencies. Oh yes, I may well receive moeny back for these charges, but only after you've got the money and I spend the next 6 months on chasing your complaints department.

Sometimes I'm looking for reasons to go home and then I remember why I left.

I could go on (even more), but listening isn't their strong points.

Kangaroo Valley and Jervis Bay

We've been down to Kangaroo Valley before and its' the ideal spot to get away from Sydney at only a couple of hours drive. Normally we'd go into the city on Mandy's days off but the happy clappers have overtaken the place for World Youth Day which is just not a pleasant prospect for a day out.

We camped last time but it's just a bit too cold now. The wombats are still there in droves though we only heard them before, at least we got to see them this time.

Kangaroo Valley village itself is a pretty laid back type of place. Nice to retire to.

The next day we headed off down to Jervis Bay, reputed to have the whitest beaches and some of the clearest seas in the world.

Hyam's Beach

Murray's Beach

Booderee National Park contains a whole host of these beaches and little inlets and has great provision for camping.

Ruined Lighthouse - Looks like a spaghetti western set

Stick or Twist

It's that time in the adventure when it comes to making big decisions.

Should we go or should we stay?

So maybe it's time to look back first of all and review things.

It's a big file so apologies in advance.



Of course there is the other option -