It was raining today. We need the rain. The headline in last night's East Anglian Daily Times, being given out free again at Colchester station, was Region's dry spell prompts drought warning. Apparently the east of England is in the middle of the driest winter since 1921, and we needed 120% of the long-term average rainfall over the entire winter period to get water levels back to normal. I've grumbled in the past about how forecasts are barely accurate five days ahead, let alone medium term (remember the dire warnings last autumn that the coming 2011-12 winter would be another savagely cold one, anyone?) and so don't attach too much credence to forecasts for the month ahead. But according to Weatherquest they're for no more than average rainfall. There's less than two and a half months of winter left to go. It's not unknown in this part of the world for it not to rain in April. At all.
The prospect of drought is worrying. We won't necessarily get a hosepipe ban here. Tendring Hundred has the lowest leakage rate in the UK, the highest water charges (some connection there) and has never had a hosepipe ban, ever. We're on a water meter so I'm as frugal as possible with watering anyway, and plants in the garden are chosen to withstand dry conditions. However, even drought tolerant species need watering when first planted, until their roots are firmly established, and the worse the drought the greater the number of plants needing help. Trees can need irrigation for up to two years after planting, if it's really dry. Even without a hosepipe ban that can represent hours spent each week just watering to keep plants alive. With a hosepipe ban it would be one long round with cans, and normal gardening would cease.
Drought is bad for trade at the plant centre. Our customers (most of them) are not idiots, and if the soil is too dry they cut right back on planting, and stop buying. They might get pretties for pots, and a few things for pet schemes near the house or for a small garden, but the committed gardeners, the ones with big spaces to fill and a time horizon stretching beyond the end of June, will hold their fire, for a season if necessary.
So we need the rain. Also, I needed to do my tax return, which I have been saving for a rainy day, while aware that the end of January deadline for on-line submission was ticking closer, after which, as Classic FM never ceases to remind me, a fine of £100 will be due for late payment even if you owe nothing (how exactly does that fit in with David Cameron's new-found enthusiasm for consumer protection?). It seemed unwise to leave it to the last minute anyway, in case of computer glitches. I've filed on-line for several years now, but I had a hazy feeling that January 20th might be the last date for getting a new password, if I ran into difficulties.
I hate doing my tax return. I loathe it with an intensity out of all proportion to the work involved. I really, really, pathologically dislike it. There's always one missing certificate for some tiny bit of income from some account or other, requiring phone calls to find out the missing numbers. I'm forced to confront which of my pathetic savings accounts have been demoted to yielding diddly squit to a jam tart (again), meaning I am going to have to spend another soul-destroying day shopping around for better rates. Why doesn't somebody come up with a Loyalty Bank, in which long term customers are rewarded, instead of being penalised for not spending half their spare time moving their money around to chase the latest savings deal? We'd all bank there.
And then there's the HMRC website. I hate it. Pages on the HMRC website update at the pace of a snail that's not in a particular hurry. After I spent ages and ages customising my return (no, I'm not in receipt of a pension, I don't have money offshore, I wasn't party to any tax avoidance schemes, I'm not blind, I don't have any allowable expenses, nor life insurance gains, nor income from property. The list went on and on), each page took ages to load as I trudged through the mundane details of my modest earnings and lowly income from savings and investments. The rules for boxes where I had nothing to declare seemed entirely arbitrary. When I put 0 against the value of tips, a big red X came up and a message that the value of this entry must be greater than zero or else blank. Further on I left another box blank where I had nothing to declare, and was told that the box could not be left empty and I must put 0.The site was running so slowly that each error message took about two minutes to deliver. I crashed out of it about three times.When I printed my tax calculation to check it against the supporting spreadsheets the printed version ran to two pages. All that page 2 said was 'HMRC : View your calculation. View your full calculation. Page 2 of 2.' Excuse me, hasn't the government heard of not printing what you don't need? Why two bits of paper when all of the information was on page one?
I know I should have done the return last summer, and not left it until practically the end of the self-assessment period, when lots of other people would be trying to access the site. I just hate doing it so much, the temptation to put it off until the eleventh hour is practically irresistible. Still, I finally got there, and have got my 32 character submission receipt number to prove it (why 32 characters? That surely provides enough unique combinations for the entire population of the planet to submit a UK tax return several times over). As a build-up to sorting out the return I tidied my desk, and found all sorts of things, including a birthday card that I bought last autumn and absolutely could not find when the time came to send it. So that's two jobs ticked off the list. Onwards and upwards.
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