I tidied my room yesterday.
This is unusual, and my motivation was somewhat unusual, in that the principle reason was to find my nail clippers, so that I could cut my fingernails. Anyway, given that a previous attempt to find them by turning the room upside down had failed, the new strategy was to actually tidy up, in the hope that they would come to light.
It was fortunate that I did this, as during the quest for the lost nail clippers, one thing I found was an opened envelope containing a letter, which I preume I'd previously opened, skimmed and thought "Oh, another letter from National Savings", and put somewhere to "file". This time I read it properly. It was actually announcing that one of my Premium Bonds had won a prize, and contained a ã50 warrant for me to pay in. This is the first time I've ever won a prize, so I was happy. Briefly. Because then I checked the warrant's date. I don't understand what the formal difference between a warrant and a cheque is, because functionally they seem to be the same thing to me, albeit with 1 key exceptions. Cheques are valid for 6 months; warrants expire after 3. The date on this warrant? 10th Nov 2003. Waaah! Panic! The debt itself doesn't vapourise on the due date, but it may be hassle (or cost) to get a new warrant issued.
So I hunted round for some way to pay it in pronto. This is tricky given that I work beyond civilisation, with no useful banks within easy lunchtime travel distance. But stumbled across the paying in book for a mostly dormant National Savings investment account. Hurah. I can pay it in at a post office, and the post office is within walking distance (OK,I admit Hangar Lane has one advantage over the Manor Royal estate in Crawley). More importantly, as Premium Bonds are also from National Savings, it means that as soon as I paid it in this morning, it's in the hands of drawing "bank". I note that the staff at the Hangar Lane post office are dilligent, as they did comment that the warrant is damn close to expiring
So now I get to wait and see whether the left hand of National Savings gets into an argument with the right hand of National Savings about whether a payment from me to me (at the same address) goes through, given that the warrant will "expire" at some point during the clearing process. We shall see.
Anyway, I found the nail clippers under a recently acquired empty box file. Which reminds me of something else I need to do...
