Eight

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Thursday:  I hold off phoning the planner for AGES.  Until 9.20.  I get his answerphone saying ‘there’s no-one here to take your call please leave a message…’ Yeah, right.  I am patient.  I wait till 9.40.  Same message.  At 10.10 I phone the main Council switchboard.  There is no answer.  Have they all, perhaps, been abducted by aliens?  And, if so, will the lack of planning consent matter if we just go ahead and put up our shed?

At 11.10 (serious restraint being shown, methinks) I find the Planning Department number on the website and try that.  It gets answered.  Hooray – progress!  I ask if Mr Planner is in and the girl says ‘I dunno, I’m jus’ back off me holidays and I dunno woss goin’ on can you try again later?’  Thank you so much most helpful.

At 12.05 I try the direct line again and get an answer – can I speak to Mr Planner?  No, he’s not here.  Can you help me?  No, I just picked up the phone on my way past.  Can you look up my application?  No, Mr Planner deals with those. Is he in work today?  Yes I think so – he’s on a site visit this morning and he has an interview this afternoon.  Try again after 3.30.  Fine.  Thank you sooooo much.

So he has an interview, eh?  What happens if he leaves?  Do we have to start again?  No, we’ll put the house on the market, find another house that already has a shed, move in and put another pool in.  It’ll be quicker…

At 3.30 work in my office has gone pear-shaped and I am entirely unable to phone back until well past 4 o’clock.  I dial the number, feeling pretty sure I’m going to get ‘ooh, you’ve just missed him’ but he answers!  I am strangely elated at actually speaking to the right person… little things, eh?  I explain about the letter and he apologises profusely – that should never have gone out and ours is absolutely at the ‘about to be resolved any minute’ stage.  He looks up the file (I can hear keyboard noises) and says he can deal with it almost immediately.  My heart soars!  Tomorrow, in fact, if he wasn’t having a day off… he promises to look at it early next week and reckons it’ll be sorted by Wednesday to go to typing.  My heart sinks.  Things Get Lost in council typing pools for weeks…  I point out the postal strike on 5th/6th and 8th/9th October, and he hasn’t heard about it.  He says that if we haven’t heard by this time next week (4.30, Thursday, imprinted on my brain) we can phone him and he can always fax it to us. He’s actually terribly nice and I am terribly nice and it is all terribly nice.  Not exactly what I was saying yesterday, but, well, I was stressed…

Ohmigod.  By this time next week we’ll KNOW.  And I have my hair being highlighted tomorrow, so by this time next week I’ll be BLONDE and we’ll KNOW.  Does it get any better?

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