Brian

We caught the tail coats of storm Brian today. The winds were quite high and cleared the trees of the last of their leaves. There was an art exhibition and demonstration at Walton Hall Gardens so we headed over to have a look.

I don't think that the sculptor doing the demonstration was called Brian. But perhaps the head he was modelling was.

Yesterday, on my way to Speke Hall, I crossed the Mersey using the new Mersey Gateway bridge between Runcorn and Widnes. It is a magnificent structure and certainly cuts down journey times. Unlike the newest bridge in Scotland this one has tolls to be paid. No booths. You have to pay online and you have up until midnight of the day after you cross to pay. I tried to pay my toll before I crossed the bridge in the morning but I could not complete the process. I tried a number of times when I returned home in the evening. Again to no avail the website would not process a single transaction or allow us to sign up for an account with them.

There are offices in both Runcorn and Widnes where you can pay in person but these don't open on a Saturday or Sunday and the telephone number is not manned in the evenings at the weekend.

Tried the website again this morning without success. You can pay at Payzone points so we looked up the one nearest to us, a branch of Bargain Booze. Other Payzone points are available. The transaction went through successfully and I could relax safe in the knowledge that an £80 fine would not be winging its way to me.

Social media is full of horror stories of payments not being taken from accounts and people like us not being able to sign up online.

Given that they have spent millions on the infrastructure you think that they would have tested the payment process to ensure that it was able to cope. It is not as if the opening is a surprise to them as they have been years building the thing. As you can imagine there is a lot of negative feeling locally to the tolls from people who have to cross the bridge regularly.