The plan today was to be at my friend’s house by about 2:30 this afternoon. Naturally, me and hubby never manage to be on time for anything, so we finally got there at closer to 4:30pm. This was partially due to us getting up late (we went to bed at 6am) and partially to do with the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Let me explain….
The marriage certificate that I was expecting yesterday failed to show today either. So, hubby decided to give the ONS a ring, only to be told that they have no record of our order. Annoyingly, I hadn’t taken note of the order number after the transaction went through because I was expecting an email with those details included – but no such email arrived. I’ve never done an online transaction that hasn’t resulted in a follow-up email being delivered so this surprised me.
It seems that the reason they couldn’t find our details was because their antiquated system gets confused when someone (like me) has an apostrophe in their name. What’s particularly hilarious is that I was, supposedly, the first person ever to experience this problem. So they’ve never had an Irish person use their service? Apparantly not, as they’ve never had another customer with an apostrophe in their name. Honestly, I’ve never heard such a load of bollocks! Anyway, despite the purchase being visible on hubby’s bank statement, the attitude of the ONS seemed to be “tough”.
So, hubby then phoned Worldpay who were extremely friendly and managed to give him a transaction ID. On presentation of this, the ONS were finally able to locate our order. Hurrah! The certificate had been despatched yesterday, so it really should arrive tomorrow. What a palava though, I don’t relish the thought of having to order from them again, though next time I’ll be sure to note down the order number straight away.
One major thing I also did today was get in touch with my mum again. We haven’t spoken for a couple of years as I’d lost her details, but I decided to ring my nana and find out where she was. I learned that my granddad passed away from a stroke earlier this year and my mum is on long-term sick leave with a variety of health problems. It was lovely to speak to her though, and I should be phoning her again over the next couple of days. She’s going to help me with my genealogy too, which will be very useful.