Marls Comics

I’ve had a bit of trouble with my home insurance recently. I’m sure most people around here know the pure frustration that goes along with trying to work out exactly what’s covered in a home insurance policy – there are so many factors that it’s almost impossible to know until the time comes – but I really wanted to know what was and wasn’t covered.

One thing that’s had me in a bit of a state is whether or not I’m covered if I get frozen pipes and the pipes then burst. My aunt had this happen in her home, and trust me it is not a good thing to deal with! Luckily the water in her home didn’t too much damage, but it could have been a lot worse. I’ve read stories of people having to tear down their homes as the damage is too much.

The insurance deal seems to say that I would be covered if this happened but only in circumstances where nothing could be done about it. Does that mean I have to install some sort of frozen pipe protection system and then if it were to fail I would be covered? Because it seems like this would only ever happen in circumstances that were unavoidable with the equipment available at that time.

If anyone has a bit of an expert at this sort of thing then please let me know – I’m tearing my hair out trying to work out whether I’m covered or not! And that’s before even thinking about contents cover, burglary etc and what I need to do to get up to the insurance company standards. It’s almost enough to just make you give up and take your chances!

Another not so comical incident lately has been the demise of my trusty BlackBerry. I had had this phone for some time, so it was kind of due for replacement, but I had been running it on pay as you to to save a bit of cash, there is a recession on you know!

So, I was really trying to avoid taking out another monthly contract that was going to cost me more.

Anyway, fate decided otherwise. I was bathing my daughter, as I do, and realised that by phone was in my pocket. Knowing that I may well get a little damp from the cleansing exercise, I decided “better safe than sorry” and thought I had better put my phone somewhere safe, where it would not get wet, you know, somewhere safe and dry :p

So, having realised the peril my phone was in I whipped it out of my pocket and started looking for some place to put it, at which point the little devil leapt out of my hand, well, it felt like it lept, but with hindsight, I think “dived” would have been a better description. It leapt up, hopped to the edge of my hand and “dived” off into the bath.

Time stands still in times of crises, or at least slows down, so, in slow motion I grappled with the little blighter trying to stop it hitting the water. Like a cat, the wretched thing squirmed around and avoiding my grasp until it dissapeared into the bath.

Of course I was not far behind it, and was straight in their after it. The problem is my daughter has to have emoliant in the bath so the water is cloudy, and my foolish blackberry was nowhere to be found!

When I got it out the thing was well and truly soaked, but sill working, kind of. I dried it off with a hair dryer and all looked good, until I realised the track pad was defunct, without which you cannot operate the phone.

So, repair or renew, that was the question. At 50 smackers I did not think the repair was worthwhile TBH so I began the hunt for a new contract. I found a site called Berrydeals that specialises in comparing blackberry contracts and managed to grab a bit of a bargain

So now I am the proud owner of a BlackBerry Curve 3G, which, so far has eluded a watery grave!

Although Im still a bit annoyed with myself over this, every cloud has a silver lining, I managed to get a new phone without my wife running the “whats wrong with your old one” routine, well, she did, but I had a decent answer… to which she responded to the effect of “you stupid fool, why cant you look after anything properly…”, so it was not all plain sailing

The up side of this phone is that its a lot faster, I use the internet a fair bit, as, due to another cost cutting exercise I catch the train to work, and having a 3G phone makes online stuff a lot easier. The keyboard is pretty good too.

And on that note, I shall end this worthless ramble, as my train is about to pull in… yes… this was written from my new BlackBerry on the train to work… one of those crappy “post written from my new phone” exercices never to be repeated… but, if you check the lenght of this little ramble you will see how good this thing actually is for working online, even if the screen is a bit small :p

Sent By My BlackBerry Curve Threeee Geeee!