'Stuff' to do

Today was not the day I had planned but after all the shenanigans with the vaccine portal yesterday everything got pushed back by a day.  Nicky kindly walked with Rachel as John and I had a lot of  'Bank Admin' which we needed to get sorted sooner rather than later so today was to be the day.

We were up early and set off for the Hellenic Bank in Polis - it is situated in the most ridiculous and dangerous place right next to the bus depot on the T junction - people are always queueing outside waiting to go in taking their lives in their hands.  We did not originally chose to have an account here - we had opened a bank account with the Co-Op bank in the village but the banking crisis and rationalisations meant that firstly our little bank in the village closed and so then we used to have to go to Polis which was ok but then the Hellenic took over the Co-Op - we find the system in there for counter service is awful, the majority of the staff quite unhelpful and the new vertically challenged 12 year old manager suffering from acute small man syndrome.  We loved our main bank - Alpha Bank but sadly they closed our branch in November which felt like a bereavement - the staff there had been the same for years, they were helpful and friendly and going to the bank was no issue.  Now we have no branch nearby - we have to go to Paphos and no ATM which is a pain particularly as we get charged to use the ATMs of other banks.  

We had thought that we would be sensible to make our account at the Hellenic in Polis our working account although I wasn't too keen but it made sense so John went down yesterday to investigate and came back ready to punch the manager's lights out!!!  Our account was dormant as we hadn't used it for a year although there is plenty of money in it (are they surprised bearing in mind the situation we have been facing for the past 12 months?) and in order to reactivate it we had to provide so much information which seemed irrelevant and a kidney each.  We made the decision to take every piece of paper we had and close the account and continue to use the Alpha one.  Ready to do battle we were relieved to find no queue at the bank and on entering midget manager facilitated us closing the account without looking at a single piece of paperwork and without baulking when we asked for the money to be given to us in cash!!!  That had worked out easier than we had expected so we were anticipating the issues to arise at the Alpha Bank in Paphos where we did have an account but have never used the branch.

So our issue with the Alpha Bank was that they had stopped the One Time Password system for on-line payments and now you have to have access to internet banking and then download an app onto your phone.  I had access to internet banking and I downloaded the app onto my phone and then is locked me out of the phone app and locked me out of internet banking.  John had downloaded the app - failed to get it to work but stopped short of being locked out of the internet banking side except for some reason he has only got access to a little account in his sole name and not our joint account.  I had a list as long as my arm of questions and queries and not much confidence that anything would get sorted.  Again we were lucky to get parked outside (it is a very busy road) and went straight in where there was only one person being dealt with at the counter.  When we explained why we were there they laughed - apparently just about everyone has had an issue with this blooming app so they were very prepared and very patient.  We ended up getting just about everything sorted and what we did not could wait until another visit.  Halleluiah I have access to my internet banking and I have the app working on my phone and I can make online payments and John has the app working and he can make online payments but he still doesn't have access to our joint account but maybe that isn't such a bad thing!!!!

We returned home via the butchers feeling pretty satisfied that we had made some real positive progress today and the girl in the Alpha Bank was really nice and said that they appreciated how difficult it was for people from the Polis area now that the bank and the ATM was closed and that there was talk that an ATM may be reinstated to help which would be great.  

We had a quiet afternoon - The Masters has started so John was happy to sit and watch the golf whilst I was more than happy to tinker with a picture for this week's challenge which is Cows and seems to have sparked some real imagination in the people that enter.  It is such a thrill to see the pictures and photographs coming in and to hear the stories behind the people who have found some real sense of purpose being part of this little challenge.  My friend's mother in law is in her 80s and she gets so excited about the themes each week and it gives her something to focus on at a time when she has been very isolated.  Her work is really good too and she has come in the top three on several occasions. 

We watched the end of Behind Her Eyes this evening and what a twist to spooky story - now on Road Kill which looks equally good.