Okay, so having to get my next monthly travelcard via Oyster is now a
foregone concslusion, but I want to clarify a couple of points that
the web-site is characteristically vague about.

Up until now, I've always renewed my monthly travelcard at Bounds
Green, but will often not immediately renew if I don't need to travel
on the days after the expirity. For example, if it ran out on a
Friday or a Saturday, I usually wouldn't renew it to start again until
the following Monday. Taking into account various weekends, bank
holidays, being out of town, etc., it usually mean not having to buy a
full 12 monthly TCs over the course of a year (e.g. 11 months and a
couple of weeklies), thereby saving money. Is it possible to have
gaps like this using Oyster.

Example: My monthly TC's worth runs out on, say, the 5th of the month
and I renew it either at a Tube station or via the web-site on that
day or the 6th or 7th, but don't actually use the card for a journey
until the 8th. Will the start date of the new month be the 8th, to
expire on the next 7th, or will it be counted as a consecutive with
the previous month, starting on the 6th and expiring again on the next
5th?

Secondly, all the literature states that the card gets "re-charged"
when you next use it at your nominated station (or whatever). So what
happens in the above example if I need to make my first journey on the
8th via _another_ station or even by bus? Previously, because it was
possible to get a card renewed to start in a few days time, that sort
of flexibility was possible - you could get the new card, already
valid to use by any appropriate route, before the old one ran out, and
even if there was a day or two's gap between the two.

Oyster seems a great idea in principle, but at the moment it seems far
less flexible than the "old" system.