Monday, August 17, 2009

People Of America

People of America, please listen to your president and not the words of Daniel Hannan. This is a man who more than likely claims huge amounts of tax payers money and it quite capable of paying for private treatment and wouldn't know how the NHS is run if it jumped up and smacked him in the nose (Preferably with a baseball bat).

Our NHS service is wonderful, sometimes things go wrong, but the most important thing about our NHS is:

1. On entry to A & E I will never be assessed to make sure I have enough medical insurance coverage/Money to pay for treatment

2. If I am unfortunate enough to get a long term illness, I will not be refused treatment halfway through because my medical insurance company decide my needs are too expensive and long term to continue cover.

3. I will never get ripped off by an insurance company with high premiums who then start changing the terms of my policy to suit them and not me.

4. If I have a serious accident/heart attack/illness I know I will get the best medical care immediately without being judged on whether I have or have not.

5. I can see my GP on the same day I want to free of charge.

6. Most consultants who work for the NHS also work privately so apart from paying I would most likely see the same person

7. I also get a choice of hospitals

8. My salary is good, but premiums are so high, unless it was offered as a perk by my employer I could never afford to pay the premiums so would not get treatment.


Barak Obama is an enlightened man, who wants the best for everyone. Give him a chance and ignore over inflated egotistical Tories. The reason our NHS was in such a bad way was Conservative induced. Margaret Thatcher was a snob who forgot her working class background and so is Daniel Hannan. We are all human and no one deserves inferior treatment or refusal because they are unable to pay. And remember just because you pay, it doesn't mean things cannot go wrong or illnesses won't go misdiagnosed, paying never guarantees better service.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Birthday Boy

I can't believe Kai was 6 yesterday! That has just flown by.

As a treat his Mum and Dad took him to the Arsenal stadium which he didn't know about. As it is around the corner from where I work he thought he was coming to see me. Bless, he got really excited when he saw the stadium and then when he found out he was going inside was even more thrilled.

He had his photo taken on his favorite players seat in the dressing room (Theo Walcott). Went into the directors box, took a look at the pitch (But no footie allowed)but what he did in the Arsenal shop was really lovely.

He got quite a lot of birthday money, so he went around the shop chosing things that he wanted. He got a ball, a hat, some sweets, a mug and water bottle and a bowl. Then he picked up a pink beany bear for his sister. Sadly it is an Arsenal bear and I must confess to having a preference for West Ham but he's only young isn't he?

It made me smile that he is starting to grow up to be a gentleman.

Wedding Dress

My Daughter is getting married in St Lucia on October the 8th. At the beginning of the year she chose a wedding dress from Monsoon. They assured us they would have them all year...........

We went out wedding dress buying the other weekend and Monsoon had their sale on, there were a few wedding dresses but not the one she had chosen so we were advised to telephone the customer services to see if they could find us one, which is what I did.

The lady was very nice, read back the product code and description and said there were some units available and that it would be sent to us by post. Last Saturday, it came.

Have you ever bought a wedding dress for your daughter? It was a really exciting momnent for me, until I noticed it was actually an 18 x 18 inch jiffy bag. I wracked my brains trying to think if I had ordered anything else, but I hadn't. When I opened it, it was a wedding dress, wrapped in tissue paper, no hanger, no plastic hanging bag, shoved into the envelope, then horrors of horrors, I took it out and it wasn't the right dress!!! I was upset then angry and tried, without success, to contact the branch of Monsoon that had sent it.

Eventually, my daughter made contact with them and asked me to call them, where I spoke to a lady called Claire. She told me she had a dress in stock and that if I paid for it again she would send it to me and I could take the other one back to any Monsoon and get a refund.

Yesterday that came. In a much bigger jiffy bag along with a really lovely letter. It read:

Dear Mrs Ives
I am sorry for the inconvenience that you have been caused, I have packed the dress as carefully as I can along with it's padded hanger and wedding dress plastic cover.

I have taken the liberty of enclosing more tissue paper so that you can wrap it carefully and lovingly for its journey to St Lucia. I hope you have a great day.

Yours Sincerely
Claire Ralls

Well whoever Claire is, she certainly restored my faith in good customer service and I will be emailing Monsoon and telling them so. People are quick to complain but we never seem to praise much when praise is due do we? So I am going to praise Claire up to her employers and keep my fingers crossed that the dress fits!!!