Mono Monday - First Day of Spring

Another horrible wet day, so I thought this would be appropriately represented for the mono Monday challenge of 'first day of spring' by some wet leaves! We have had quite an awful winter, I'm desperately in need of some nicer weather. Looking back I notice that the blue tits are later in starting to build their nest too (unless the starting attempts have been abandoned - a blue tit is still roosting overnight it's so horrible). I drove into town to take some very heavy bags to the charity shop - annoyingly I struggled to get a parking space as even the car park was full. 

I've spent most of the day on the phone. I rang HMRC to pay my voluntary NIC - turns out after 1 hour and 20 mins that you can't pay it to them over the phone, but they have to give you an 18 digit reference number so you can make the payment and it goes against your record (the payment takes 8 weeks to appear). The reference number had to be used before the end of the tax year, despite the deadline to buy NIC having been extended until the end of July. I had to repeatedly say which years I wanted to pay and he kept querying it, so having got the reference number, I thought it best to confirm the specific years and amount with the Future Pensions Centre (part of DWP), having already confirmed the number of years to pay. That only took 2 mins......after an hour waiting for the phone to be answered, after 9 calls where I was cut off after getting to the stage of joining the queue for the right team. Then I made the payment via my bank, who were more concerned that I was being coerced into making a fraudulent payment - despite the fact that it was to HRMC and they check the name and account details match and I'd checked the bank details I'd been given over the phone to the HMRC website! Why on earth can't the Future Payments Centre, once they've confirmed what to pay, then take the payment over the phone???? I also cancelled my cover with HomeServe due to poor service - that was complicated too. I'm now going to lie down in a darkened room!!!!!