in which i waffle

I need to go to the post office again. sigh. it's still cold out. My gran called this morning to tell me that where one of my uncles lives, it's -21 C. I reckon that's the coldest it's been in Holland since I lived there in 95/96. That winter was the coldest in 100 years. I even got to skate - in proper wooden skates - on a frozen canal. I was frozen too. The room I was living in (in a shared house) had no heating. It was also the attic room and had no proper insulation. So I had a space heater and I could feel the wind from outside when I was laying in bed. I used to go over to my friends' house to sleep on the couch in their kitchen because it was so much warmer.
Happily, these days I live in a properly insulated house with functioning heating. Also the boy is not one of these people who goes around turning down thermostats. I'm not silly, I don't heat all the rooms when I'm not in them, but I don't have to worry about someone opening a window or turning off the heat. I even have a hot water bottle and a proper nice thick duvet.
Anyway...in other exciting news, I ordered a sort of posterboard thing from the Assay Office which has all the info about hallmarking on it. I didn't think I needed one, as I've already got their small hallmarking information cards, but it turns out that strictly speaking, if you are selling silver/gold in a public space then you have to display one of these hallmarking info boards. So I ordered one (not that bad, only £10) and lo and behold it arrived. Sort of. I opened the envelope and there was just two pieces of plain brown cardboard in it!! Ha! They forgot to put the board in! So I called them and they're going to send me another one. They sounded a bit suspicious...like I'm running a racket selling Hallmarking boards. Please, like at £10 a piece I'm really going to make a killing or something...pff.