What a horrid day. It's pouring with rain and I'm continuing to try to change all of mum's household bills and payments into my name.
Everyone I rang a) has endless options to choose before I could talk to a real person and b) gave me a hard time because I hadn't ever told them I had POA as it really hadn't seemed to matter. So I've sent my evidence and I have to get back to them once they're satisfied that I'm not just maliciously attempting to pay an old lady's bills.
On a more positive note - I have discovered mum was £1600 in credit with NPower - which she'll eventually be refunded and it also means that my payments will reduce (considerably as I won't need the house heated like a sauna)
Soooo ... when I rang Yorkshire Water and the phone was immediately answered by a very pleasant woman with a Geordie accent, I became quite giddy with excitement! No she didn't need proof. Yes, she could transfer the account. Yes, she could offer a simpler way to pay. Yes she has a dog too ...
I love the YW woman!!!
In an effort to declutter and raise funds I'm listing some stuff on eBay. The first thing was an awful old Ercol suite - which was snapped up for £125 ..  when the courier *finally* came to take it away, the very patient Maisie and I headed out for a breather. Amazingly the sun came out - and as I was driving along I spotted a turtle dove landing in someone's garden, so I pulled over to watch.

This is a rather sad photo of the turtle dove displaying to a collared dove, an act of desperation as there are no female turtle doves for him to mate with - and a complete non starter as far as breeding's concerned.

So sad.