Nothing is Easy in the UK

We have been in the UK now for 10 days and things are going very well considering. People are very friendly and helpful. Kings is great but I have only had a teachers only day so far.

However, anything you try to do is a massive hassle. We are yet to get our phone, internet and TV working. It would be unfair to call BT (Brittish Telecom) a dinosaur as that would assume it moves. It took them a week to flick a switch. Then it didn't work, so having rung them they informed me there was a fault, "well done". They are going to take up to 2 weeks to send an engineer to fix it. Can they have a contact number please, "yeah right".

The call centre is in India. I have rung them about 6 times. A couple of them were pointless as they did not do as they told me they would. You keep getting answers like "we are so sorry for your inconvience", "I understand your frustration" and a number of other apologies. Having rung them so many times it becomes very apparent that they are trained to give certain well learnt lines. In my last effort I asked for complaints. I must have asked 5 times but each time got one of their learnt lines. I gave up and asked for there internet wi-fi department. Again I was given the lines but kept repeating my request to each reply. Eventually he relented and I was transferred through and spoke to a Scotsman. What a difference. I was given a reinbursement to the wifi I had been purchasing and informed how I could use internet remotely.

We have tried to enrole our kids into various schools. We were informed by people to turn up on the teachers only day. A week later Sue turned up to be told that she needed to call the council who deal with all enrolments in Flintshire the area we live in. We rang them to be told they were too busy and it would take time; they had nothing to do the previous week. To make things worse most schools are full for Julia's age. I hate to imagine which school they are going to suggest and how far away they are. We have a temporary solution at a school 4 miles away.

The principles are very friendly though and we are going to contact 3 of them once they have seen if any of their year 3s have not turned up. If they have space in a room it does not necessarily mean they can take extra kids as there overall cap may be reached. Apparently all the new enrolments happened in December.

On  a brighter note we went for a very nice drive out in the Wirral and found a Tram Museum in Birkenhead. The kids got a ride on a 1920's doubledecker tram. They sat in the front section which was open air. We also got great views of Liverpool over the water.