Banks, boxes (yes, again) and other bothersome things

A whole day of packing.  Oh joy.  My break from it all is aerobics and Pilates.  Hmm.   That's not strictly speaking what I'd put in the 'fun' category...  Well, on Monday night I did have the luxury of going out for a meal with the cowboy.  Even though it felt as hot as Las Vegas that day.  Reports say it was something stupid like 38 degrees..!  No wonder I made pretty slow progress with packing that day.

I don't think the cowboy really realises what's involved in packing your things up and putting them all into boxes.  Especially when you're self-employed.  I'm not just packing up my home.  I'm packing up my office too.  Which means reams and reams of papers to sort through and files to organise as well as books and photo albums and clothes and stationery things to put into boxes.  (Preferably labelled boxes so I can find it all again.)  Thankfully, it was a stormy night last night and the temperature in Prague has dropped a bit, but it's still very hard work to get through the day with no air-conditioning.

It's hard to deal with all of the bits and pieces from the past as well and I don't like having to decide which letters and cards and things to keep.  By and large I'm being quite ruthless and just chucking everything out unless I really use it, but I'm not so good at being ruthless with pictures.  I have a big box of pictures alone.  I need to cut back on those.  My trouble is, I haven't grown out of the teenage habit of sticking pictures up on the wall with blu-tack.  So I can hang on to pictures easily, knowing I will indeed put them up on the wall again and change them over every few months.  I'm also somewhat disheartened by the number of files of boring admin type stuff like bank account info, tax forms and accounting things in general.  How is it possible that these things can take up so much room when I've got virtually no money in those damned accounts anyway?  Isn't it preposterous?

I actually had a very funny letter from the bank here the other week.  My Czech bank has decided that I am a "valued customer" because I have been with them two years and so they want to invite me to come into a branch and...collect a free photo frame.  Wow.  That's got to be one of the lamest rewards a bank could give out.  This is a bank who charge me a fee for every little transaction I have to make including standing orders and direct debits, cash machine withdrawals, phone top-ups and so on.  And the best they can do is a free photo frame that I actually have to go in to collect?  What is the world coming to?  I know the Czech Republic isn't exactly renowned for its customer service skills but this is just ridiculous.  I would feel less disgusted with them if they hadn't offered me a measly photo frame but had announced instead that they were stopping all the fees on my current standing orders.  Obviously, I am not that "valued" a customer afterall.  

I'm wondering why I'm bothering to carefully pack my things up anyway.  I fear the cowboy will either have a heart attack when he sees how much stuff I have or will have an almighty fit of rage at me at some point that this is all too much and just throw it out of the window.  He's never had to do this, so is unfamiliar with the concept that moving house is incredibly stressful, fraught with emotional consequences and generally takes a long time to do.  He was hoping we could take the majority of boxes over to his tomorrow night so that I would be free to help him finish putting up some doors on cupboards in his flat in the mountains for him this weekend.  When I mentioned that this was the last weekend I would actually have before having to officially be out of my flat, he said, "What, you're STILL going to be packing things?"  As though during the final weekend before moving out it is actually possible not to still be packing things. 

I don't know what planet he was born on, but it's obviously not the same one as me.  I come from a place where if something is an ongoing problem, you just grit your teeth and see it through to the end.  You don't try to pretend it's not happening and run off for a weekend in the mountains.  You might run off round the corner for a much needed frappuccino and chocolate muffin from time to time, but that's different.  The good news there though is that I just got a voucher for a free frappuccino whenever I next fancy one for filling out a questionnaire online about the behaviour and service of the staff on my most recent 'visit'.  

I don't think I was particularly complimentary about the staff because in fact, that day I had not had a particularly great experience with them, because they've got into that habit of asking your name and writing it on the cup (which I find a bit irritating) and I insisted on checking her spelling of my name, because I told her in Czech and I wanted to be sure that she'd understood my pronunciation, and she looked at me like I was wasting time.  But I figured it was already wasting time to write everyone's name on the damned cups in the first place, so you may as well spell it right, you know?  But anyway, it doesn't matter.  I still have a freebie waiting for me thanks to my diligence as a customer who fills in questionnaires.  Hmm.  I should become a customer service advisor.  Or consultant.  A customer service consultant.  That sounds better.  More scope to be an arrogant arse with the title, 'consultant'.  I'm sure I'd be ever so good at it and I'd at least give people actual value for money rewards for their custom.  Free coffees from cafes.  And, accordingly, free money from banks.  Not photo frames.

A sea of changes, an ocean of resistance and surprises from an old friend

I feel worn-out from a day in which I have sought to achieve more than was ever going to be possible, but nonetheless have made progress.  Much to the consternation of some.  It was always going to be difficult, having to put my foot down to some meet-ees and actually say, "no, this is not how it's going to be anymore."  I cannot afford to provide favours for all and sundry and keep my rates to an acceptably lowly 'female helping profession' kind of level any longer.  The saying, "no" part has come easier in many ways, than I expected.  Czechs prefer you to be clear, not wishy-washy so saying an outright, "I cannot continue with this" is preferable to, "I don't think I'm going to be able to continue" and is exactly what I needed to say.  This has by and large been accepted without quibble.  After all, a clear, "no" leaves no room for negotiation.

Asking for what I need from new, 'met-once but not established into the timetable' meet-ees has been a little bit harder.  So has asking for what I need from friends who thought they could have endless favours and fashionable amounts of freedom to come and go as they please.  But it is all necessary and worth it in the long run to actually clear my timetable of so many hours of dead time where I'm virtually drawing blood from a stone and barely getting paid enough to allow myself to eat and drink healthily that day.

So, enough is enough.  I'm being 'reasonable but firm' about what I can and can't tolerate.  And I'm trying to work around problems as they arise and see if I can knock down the most persistent and pervasive ones.  The next hurdle is another visit to the bank.  My favourite thing.  Camping out in an over-the-top affluent-looking waiting area with a fountain no less, waiting for my number to come up on a screen, not only makes me think I must have ended up on a stopover in bankers' heaven but makes me spit with fury at what nonsense they're spending my banking fees on.  If I spent my meet-ees fees on champagne and oysters, it would be close to the equivalent of this I suppose.  (Mind you, champagne and oysters would actually be rather nice and a definite 'pick me up' for my otherwise lethargic and melancholic state, whereas an indoor fountain and wood panelled 'pods' to either sit and wait on or stand and write at, offer no such succour.)

And so it is that I find myself at the end of this long and busy day of once again trying to achieve the impossible, sipping hot chocolate with coconut liqueur and marvelling at the surprises that have befallen me today.  Namely, a parcel I collected from the post office from the Russian Countess, containing a stash of chocolates, including a chocolate covered marzipan bar I had wanted to buy myself over Christmas but ran out of money for, some German champagne truffles, a lovely traveller's notebook and a card with sentiments expressing some unfounded belief in my achievements.  I can only stare in amazement at such luck and cherish the thought that there is someone out there who thinks that the work I do, the stuff that so far seems to have no commercial value whatsoever, is somehow highly significant and is revered by another creative soul.  That warms the cockles of my heart better than the hot chocolate.  And that is truly saying something because I'm becoming something of a hot chocolate fanatic these days.

Sunshine, errands and photos

London is awaiting me tomorrow, along with the Faerie Godmother Trainee.  But the sun decided to come out today (I knew it - the one weekend I won't be here in Prague and it decides to heat up and be sunny - typical) and it's amazing what a difference a bit of sunshine makes.  I went on a little walk to get a few last things to bring with me to bestow on friends in London, but I didn't have time to enjoy much of it.  So I took some photos instead, to be able to look at them and marvel at the lovely weather later.  

While I was out, I stupidly decided to try a bit of light-hearted banter with the woman in Tesco, but she was probably too young to indulge in such things and my comment that, ,,konečně je to léto, že jo?" ["it's finally summer, isn't it?!"] was received with a teenager-like look of simultaneous incomprehension and disdain.  Maybe I was being overly friendly and thus impolite with such an informal phrase as ,,...že jo?" or maybe she was just miserable because people kept telling her what a lovely day it was outside and she was stuck working in an air-conditioned, no natural light to speak of, branch of Tesco.  In which case, ,,takže, chapu." ["I understand then."]  Or maybe my Czech is worse than I thought.  Occam's razor would decree it has to be the latter.

Anyway, I thought I could bypass any further need to attempt to write something interesting, seeing as I'm pushed for time and really should be packing my case instead, with some of the photos I took . There's one extra one from the other day when I realised they'd vamped-up Václavské náměstí with flower beds down the middle, just in time for tourist high-season.  Ah, the vanity...

Looking up to náměstí Míru, the church in the background, this is the general theme of where I live, banks, banks and more banks.  Oh, and a tram.  Of course. 

Then the view from the bank on the corner by the metro station, looking past yet another bank. You can just about see down to the shiny and copper-topped building in the background, which is part of the national museum at the very top of Václavské náměstí:

And here are the roses [um, sorry, you'll have to zoom in and look closely to see them!] in the middle of Václavské náměstí (or ,Václavák' as it's affectionately known to us 'locals'):