… from about 10:00 until 21:00, and it’s still raining even as we speak. Summer has well and truly gone, and winter is just around the corner. As far as solar energy goes, you know that I have 4 banks of solar panels here with a total of 1260 watts, and I’ve received less than 2 amps of solar energy in total. And all of that came before 10:00.
I’ve been out today too, and I’ve come home with a new toy. Seems to be the story of my life just recently – I’ve never spent so much money.
And here it is – an old Kubota mini-digger.
The story behind this is that I was looking for a new heavy-duty trailer as you know, ever since the bottom fell out of the Sankey trailer. I’d heard about a big heavy-duty Indespension plant trailer for sale, and so I had gone to see it. And sitting upon it was this old digger.
The trailer is exactly what I want, without any doubt at all, but when the vendor mentioned the price for them both, which is what I would have paid forthe trailer had I gone to the UK and bought a new one, there wasn’t any question about it.
The digger works well enough for its age and it’ll do what I want.
Of course, I already have half a digger – you may remember that Terry and I bought one a few years ago between us. But that was quite modern and quite expensive and we don’t use it that much. There’s a lot of money tied up in that, and so the idea is that we sell that, split the money between us, and my share will more than cover what I paid for this.
So I brought it home and had a play outside, in the driving rain, and I was soaked to bits. I’ve spent the rest of the day curled up under the quilt to dry off and keep warm. I don’t want to catch anything.
But here’s a thing. I had to pay €2050 plus VAT for something today, and that meant a trip to the bank. And how long would it take you to work out what the VAT is on that? VAT is of course 20% here and so €2050 x10% is €205, and another €2050 x10% is another €205 and so the total VAT is €410. The bill thereforecomes to €2460. It took the bank clerk 15 minutes, and the help of a colleague, calculator and a computer to work it out.
That’s a bank clerk in the local branch of mybank. No wonder the banks are in such a mess if this is an example of the skilled and intelligent staff that they are employing.
I despair.
