FLYING KITES

There’s less than a month to go to the dreaded Budget and one thing that’s noticeably absent from the tabloids this year is kites.

Flying kites. The deliberate leaking of information by the Treasury to gauge public opinion on any policy changes they may be weighing up. You didn’t really think this stuff gets into the media because some inattentive numpty accidently hit the ‘enter’ key? Nope. The Treasury knowingly lets one slip out then sits back to wait and see exactly how the public might react to whatever hellish stink has polluted the atmosphere.

This time last year the papers were full of kites but this year there seems to have been little to excite the masses into a righteous pre-budget froth. It’s worrying. It’s generally known that the quiet ones are the worst but this parliamentary silence is probably more unsettling than loads of scurrilous front-page rumours.

I imagine that Horrible Healy is playing his cards very close to his chest for his first budget because he is unlikely to be delivering any pleasant early Christmas presents. We’re all on the naughty list although if he gave everyone a lump of coal at least it may go some way to reducing energy bills. (Price cap rumoured to increase somewhere between 16% to 24% in January 2027).

The best way to deliver bad tidings is unexpectedly then people have limited or no time to react to the news.

Too many rumoured tax increases are going to send more rich folks running for those tax-haven hills, a scenario the Government are keen to avoid at all costs particularly as they’ve lined up all their ducks to further tax that super-wealthy one percent. Naturally, if there are no rich poshos left to tax then the spotlight is going to shift firmly on us ordinary peeps.

In the same way that gardeners are tending the flower borders, preparing them for that long winter sleep, we too should be weeding through our personal finances now getting them combat-ready for any fight, flight or freeze responses to whatever the Treasury has to throw at us.

I’ve already withdrawn a chunk of private pension to max out my cash ISA in case the Chancellor cuts the savings thresholds even further or increases the basic rate of income tax or savers tax. I’d rather take a 20% hit now but be ready to take advantage of any base rate rises coming after the budget. If he does increase income tax rates imagine the mad financial scramble of lemmings trying to avoid the taxation cliff edge before next April.

Don’t forget that cash ISA savings thresholds are only at £20,000 until next April after which it will drop down to £12,000 for anyone that is under 65 years old. Since cash ISA accounts are pretty much the only legitimate way for savers to shelter money from the tax man in the UK then it makes sense to squirrel away as much of your hard-earned dosh into them because my gut feel is that eventually in the dim and distant future, cash ISAs may be phased out thus forcing anyone building up a sizeable nest egg to pay savers tax.

It’s important to remember that some kites may fly but never actually get off the ground so always exercise due diligence before making any hasty financial decisions. Crunch those numbers. Ask AI. Flip a coin. Stick a finger in the air. Just be ready to act when the curtain falls on 28 October. In the meantime, keep looking out for those kites.

STILL WAITING

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. There’s definitely scope for AI to be put to good use to invent crystal balls that allow punters to see the outcome of decisions made. A ‘sliding doors’ soothsayer ball.

Now if I’d had one of these future-predicting spheres at the point when I reviewed all cladding quotes then I might not be in this standstill situation because my magical globe would have pin-pointed this scenario exactly and I would have chosen to go with another builder. No farting about waiting to see when my project might resume.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Vlad the Clad is either a complete incompetent monkey or has memory retention issues. Either way, it’s clear that he is NOT a man of his word. The last text message received promised a return visit on Tuesday with plumber in tow.

So, when I advised him that the additional cement boards had been delivered on Monday afternoon, I was not expecting a reply as follows:

Ohhh blimey. I was told it was coming Wednesday afternoon. I’m on another job now but definitely be there Thursday to finish the job.

Right. You promised you’d be back Tuesday and once again, I’ve been bumped for another job. Bumped. Twice. Not once – TWO times!!!!!! If you’d been told the boards weren’t coming until Wednesday afternoon then why did you tell me you’d be back on Tuesday? Agreed, you hadn’t specified which Tuesday on your text but I had naturally assumed it would be the next one on the calendar.

Aaahh, now I get it. Another job. That’s why you didn’t come back to screw in the last remaining bits of timber for the cladding framework or clear all the debris from my garden which you could easily have done on the Friday whilst you were waiting for extra boards to arrive. If I had been doing this job myself that’s exactly what I would have done during down time. But no.

The grass of my lawn should have been regenerating in the cooler damper days we’ve recently had but instead is suffocating under a mountain of builder ‘tut’ currently cluttering the back garden. I have the world’s supply of wall pots to screw back into position once you lot have buggered off so that I can prepare these for next year’s planting.

Clearly you don’t seem to realise that every day of delay is yet another day that I can’t get on with these tasks which really need to be done before winter or the monsoon season sets in.

Which brings me right back to thinking about project delay penalties. Now that I have the materials on site, could I employ someone else to finish this job then pay Vlad proportionally for work he completed? Under consumer legislation what are my rights in such a scenario?

It doesn’t help that Thursday’s forecast is potentially a rainy one providing yet another excuse for further delay but my patience is now wearing very thin. Thinner than a sheet of bog paper. And when patience is thin, a volcanic eruption usually follows. I want my project finished by end of October max and God help you if it isn’t!

STANDSTILL

Seriously, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried. Lord knows I have a very fertile imagination but this really does take the biscuit!

Day three of cladding and there’s still no end in sight. Good progress made today, the cladding tide now topping the bedroom window yet a long way off from reaching the apex.

Cladding has now reached bedroom window

Rewind a few hours. There’s been a steady stream of foot traffic to the downstairs loo. Either these peeps have dodgy prostrates or they can’t help but come in to admire my funky cloakroom décor. Still, it does beg the question – how do builders manage on jobs where no loo access is provided? Bucket in the back of the van?

It doesn’t help that I’m sat here clacking away on my laptop within earshot from the loo. If you tinkle, sprinkle, play a tune on your trouser trumpet or use my toilet as a telephone box then yes, I can hear everything. And I mean everything. Every little droplet hitting the pan because the one thing I didn’t include in my cloakroom refurb was music-studio grade sound proofing.

I can especially hear loud conversations to builder’s merchants pleading for extra cement fibre boards to be delivered urgently because you’ve under-estimated the amount needed for this job. And I can detect from the frustration in your voice that these are either out of stock or that further supplies are unlikely to be delivered today which means there’s a high probability that you guys won’t be back tomorrow.

Whoops!  Not enough cement fibre boards

Should have put a fiver on it. Not a dickie bird mention of this situation to me whilst on site. Ping! Is that the sound of a text message arriving? Yep, you guessed. Project at a standstill yet again, return date estimated as being next week.

If only customers could include delay penalties on trade quotes where a daily charge is deducted for every lost day of productivity because at this rate, I’d be getting this job done for free. Oh well, better late than never.

Nice and neat round the window

CLADDING CONTINUES

It’s day two of the cladathon. As nice as these guys are, I am seriously beginning to wonder about their cladding credentials.

My expertise in these matters may be zilch but I’m sure you don’t cut cement fibre boards with a jigsaw. The clue’s in the name, Numbnuts. Cement. If I was cutting those boards myself, I’d probably be using an angle grinder or circular saw with a nice sharp diamond blade. It’s no wonder progress is slow. I keep schtum as I hand over the tea tray.

And whose clever idea was it to send a 16 year-old lad to smash an asbestos soil pipe into pieces in the middle of my slowly recovering lawn without so much as a stitch of protective clothing or a tarpaulin to catch any of the debris? Really?

Our surveyor repeatedly warned us NOT to scrape, drill or crack the pipe because any kind of damage releases the hazardous toxic material for which asbestos is much maligned yet Vlad seems happy to sign a death-warrant on his pimply apprentice and contaminate my garden without a care in the world. Any considerations of potential human or environmental impact clearly missing from builder brain.

Slowly recovering lawn cluttered again

I shake my head in disbelief and go back to my knitting. Mutter, mutter, mutter. Don’t worry, as soon as you lot have buggered off, I shall be out in my hazmat gear to pick up every single little bitty piece of piping and black paint flakes, I tell myself. If I had a grass hoover, I’d vacuum the lawn just to make sure every particle of A-dust is gone.

After a second labouring day, the cladding tide has only just reached the spare room window. According to Dr Google, cladding the apex on a house takes on average one day making the productive output of these dudes look like that of a sausage dog.

Cladding tide continues to come in slowly

Has reached the window on one side

Hope you're doing something to hide those ragged edges

Back in the workplace, I’d have said this looks like a clear-cut case of ‘stringing it out.’ Perhaps this is how some trades justify charging extortionate prices for this type of work by billing you for the week instead of for a couple of days then working at a leisurely snail’s pace instead of cracking on.