Oh yes, again...

NOT AGAIN

Same Courtroom, different judge.  This time I was alone in the well of the court. Judge #2 asked what the reason for this appearance was. I explained that I had been asked to return with specific information from the Pension People.  Ah yes, she said. I handed over the document received from them to the Registrar who then handed it to the judge.  Her Honour wasn’t satisfied with it. It doesn’t state x, y, z as required, she said with a touch of anger. “I’m sorry” I said. “This is what they sent me. I took it to be what was wanted.”  I was so visibly upset that she relented a little. “You weren’t to know” she said.   “But they most certainly should”- and she fixed a new date for me to appear in the courtroom, with the information required just to rubber stamp the process. So now I have to go back – again- in November. Is there no end to this?

I went home, rang the Pension Scheme Management Company. The phone call I'd never ever made to a service company; I was massively, massively angry. I was put through to a senior manager who tried to convince me that a judge asking for more detailed information than they ordinarily supplied, was a very unusual request. If it’s so unusual, I said, how did my husband’s pension provider know to do it? There was silence on the other end of the ‘phone. These organizations are  and always have been paid huge sums of money to administer schemes and invest funds...and over the last number of years they've lost huge sums and depleted pension schemes to the point where they're being closed down. Bye now, sorry about that...

The upshot of this is, I’m the  one who is upset, discommoded and has to attend a court again. Not to mention the other stuff; changing my name on some official documents e.g. driver’s licence, passport, i.d. cards, credit cards….

As for sorting out the house and living arrangements, I’m not even going to go there. I’m going to the pub instead. Which is probably not the wisest idea, but it’s the one that appeals to me right now.