4th October 2006

It has been a nightmare with NTL. We gave NTL the customary 30 days notice on 20/9/06 to cancel the phone on 20/10, but they went and cut us off immediately. No-one has been able to call us, which is great in one respect, but this is the time that people want to speak with us just before we go! The Customer service has been abissmal, we had two engineers come out to us, numerous advisors that we spent 1/2 hour on the phone with, and eventually two weeks without a phone line!
Then the bank decided to delete our bank account from the online system, and change the names of the account by deleting my name and adding my mothers. It's too complicated to explain, but as you can imagine internet banking is going to be vital for us to run our affairs when we are away!
Then of course there'sall the letters you need to send to change your correspondance address whilst you are away. It's surprising how many you have to send!
I have resigned from the bank and finish on 13/10/06. 9 days to go....it'll be nice to finish now that I've made that decision to leave. Funnily enough I haven't had any second thoughts up to now.
Still we are getting there, two weeks on Saturday and we'll be on the plane to California. Can't wait.