To say this week has been trying is an understatement!! Around a month ago, I applied on behalf of someone else, for a temporary licence to take 3 pigs from wales to somerset, for performance reasons to a location with no CPH number. Now this is a standard licence used solely for performance reasons.
anyway, one AH office said it couldnt be done.........duuuurrr it can and has been many a time before, while the AH office at the other end of wales said no prob, as they issued exactly the same licence earlier on in the year for pigs to work on snowdon, filming for 2 weeks!!. So i call camarthen and say well get in touch with caernarfon and they will tell you what is needed. this they did and all seemed fine, anyhow, the persons whose pigs they are, that i'm applieing for the licence for has also spoken to camarthen, that have given her a totaly different story. it turns out a few calls down the line, that caernarfon had no right to issue the licence for some reason ? so i get hold of somerset, asking if they could shine some light on the situation, so there AH say, there 's no reason why you shouldnt have it, mean while call after call after call camarthen are still baffling themselves with basics, still saying no but when asked to justify there reasons for not issueing the licence couldnt tell me why!! now after being on caution myself for 3 years, and being asked question after question and having to have answers for them, having 3 hearings and all over 1 licence 1 day to late for 1 pig, i'd of atleast thought they would of had the decency to answer 1 of my questions!
By now i'd had enough of being nice and we only had a week left to get things sorted, i was told the pigs could go then, but had to be taken of set to a farm for the night then back on set and so on for the 7 days!! i explained that this would put the farm on 20 day standstill, apparently not according to camarthen!!! believe me it had been worse than this, and there's uslot with livestock calling these plonkers for advice!! so i opened me mouth and couldnt stop meself from calling him an Incompetant banker!! spelt slightly different...... ahhhh it worked!!! mind you it was followed up by asking for worcester AH HQ phone number, as by now i was clocking up 15 hours of calls and they were all still saying different!! anyway, i called worcester, but camarthen beat me by 1 minuit!!! somerset called the film company, to cover little bits like were the pigs would be and basics, then they called camarthen to reasure them it was all good to issue, caernarfon backed out when they new they were wrong to issue the snowdon licence, and worcester had now told camarthen all was good to issue the licence!!! this was yesterday........... so i called camarthen that said yep you can take them, but i wanted the paper to cover his go ahead because hed made too many balls ups allready, he reasured me the paper work would be here today, i asked him to call the owner of the pigs, as soon as it arrived as she was willing to pick the licence up from camarthen AH office straight away.
2.30 pm today still no licence and i was not a happy bunny..... i called camarthen who told me that worcester had now handed the case over to ..... wait for it.....THE WELSH ASSEMBLY!!............. according to camarthen, not many animals actualy move between wales and england!!! so it had gone to the assembly for approval!! by now the bloke was in a mass panic, and verbaly abusing him would only of caused him to have a full on panic attack i'm sure, so i just suggested that he stayed in hes office untill hed got it sorted and could ring thru that he had it
This he did I had a call at approx 6.45 pm this evening, just as i'd put the cow on to milk saying......or should i say shouting...WE GOT IT!!!
If the owner of the piggies wishes to let you know who she is then fair enough, but after the ups and downs of the last week, of sorting something that was actualy soooo basic, i'm not sure she wants too
she is a member of this forum, and has been a saint at how patient she has been, and on the od occasion has had just a little bit of swearing to contend with..... not off me of course
So we have the licence, even tho it took way longer than it normaly would, so a word of advice, Dont take your local AH word as gospel, if it doesnt seem right what they are sayin get a 2nd opinion, I had four AH, 1 of those HQ they all said different and it ended up out of there hands almost totaly!!
There will be pikis and the piggies will be on telly
Somerset AH are also going to the set on monday when they are filming to see how things are, and to check on site, living accomodation and the general handling and welfare of the pigs while they are in there new temporary abode
all i've got to do now is get them down there! hmmmm now was it wednesday or thursday
