Cheery's country living adventure

South_coast · 23 January at 10:57AM

I keep tripping over everyone else's parcels that delivery drivers have just left in our hallway rather than bother to go up to the correct flat 😮 They'd do the same with mine, except my door is actually closer than their allotted dumping area (although it seems to be beyond them to actually ring the bell at the moment - the first I know that I've got a delivery is when I get an email telling me it's been delivered, yet I've been sat inside the whole time 🙁)

themadvix · 23 January at 11:00AM

South_coast said

(although it seems to be beyond them to actually ring the bell at the moment - the first I know that I've got a delivery is when I get an email telling me it's been delivered, yet I've been sat inside the whole time 🙁)

Same here! I caught the Dpd driver leaving a parcel in our porch (I’d heard the gate go)... apparently he ‘always leaves it there because we’re never in...’... er, except for the last 10 months mate, when there have been two of us here 90% of the time!! Honestly!

rtandon27 · 23 January at 1:55PM

We've seem to have the opposite problem with the old boy who delivers my meds from the chemist! He won't drop & run even when asked to.

Last month he stationed himself outside the door insisting I come & take it from him, after I had opened the upstairs window and asked him to please leave it on the doormat! (which I do every single time he comes with a delivery btw) He did so grudgingly after I politely pointed out he didn't have a mask or gloves on & we are in the middle of a pandemic and there was a clinically vulnerable person living in the house with me.

This month he was wearing both a mask & gloves but said I had to confirm the address before he'd leave it on the mat! (He's been delivering here monthly for the past 10 months & never asked before) He shouted out the address as loudly as he could & was visibly annoyed when I pointed out that yes, this was correct as confirmed by the large silver number on the door right in front of him

...

Have I ever mentioned that we live in the middle of nowhere & there are only 5 houses in the entire postcode? We only have one attached neighbour who also has a large silver number on their door! Also, in order to get to us there is a giant sign with an arrow and the name of the road...

They say patience is a virtue - but obviously not one I possess! 🤣🤣🤣

greenbee · 23 January at 2:39PM

I had a similar problem with my postman @rtandon27 until I put a note on the door. If there was a parcel, even one that didn't need a signature, he would ring the bell, knock on the door and even bang on the windows. What made it worse was that it was generally after dark and often 10pm or later. At that time I'm either a. working b. in the bath or c. in bed. As a result my new front door has no letterbox (helps with draughts too) and I have a postbox on the wall. I just need to work out some kind of waterproof box for parcel deliveries with some way to give delivery drivers the 'evidence' they need while reducing the risk of them taking advantage. I guess a note on the inside and a camera trained on it would work. Then no one will need to come into the garden with deliveries.

Baileys_Babe · 23 January at 2:53PM

Our house is in a slightly unusual location and some delivery people make a right fuss. There are only 5 properties in our postcode 2 of which have been knocked into 1 (us) each property has a name (and officially a number which are only used on official documents). 4 of the properties can be accessed through our gate and the 5th property is opposite next door. The usual comment is now they know where we are they will never have a problem again 😀 the occasional delivery driver makes a right fuss about how out of the way we are and how difficult it is to find us. The nearest modern housing estate is less than 120 metres down our road 🤣 Our previous place was a mile down a narrow unmade road, just think how they would have coped with that.

Most delivery people seem happy to drop it on the doorstep and then wait (or not) at the top of the path for the door to be answered. Your prescriptions guy seems to be a complete pain @rtandon27 is it worth contacting the pharmacy to ask for it to be added to your records that the drop-offs need to be non-contact for medical reasons?

Not a virtue I possess either.

Our letterbox is on the wall next to the door. We were previously (before CV19) considering getting a parcel box (like this) as well, as we often missed deliveries, no longer an issue with OH working from home for the foreseeable and the rest of us confined to barracks most of the time.

Cheery_Daff · 23 January at 4:10PM

Gosh, it seems many of your are struggling with deliveries, oh dear! At our old house we were easily find able on a normal street, but because we were a corner terrace, we belonged to one road, but the houses we were attached to belonged to the road round the corner - and next door but one had the same door number as us, but the other road

We were forever getting their takeaways

Well we have had much snow again today, very pretty. I spent the morning finishing my hot water bottle cover (hooray) and since then have been pottering around tidying up, making a not-very-successful flatbread (which was at least edible, just), and some lentil soup, which was most tasty. Cleaned the chicken run out and sat with them for a while. And a neighbour popped round to introduce themselves, they'd got talking to our tree planting geezer a while back and I'd told him to tell them to say hi when they were passing. So that was nice, although they have tried to recruit me for some neighborhood group discussing a local consultation and I'm not entirely sure I want to get tooooo involved with that...

We'll see.

Also managed finally to hang the washing up I did the other day. Yawn. I do find washing unutterable tedious, especially in the winter. I think it's because the washing machine takes so long, and we have no real wardrobes at the minute, so there's never really the satisfaction of putting it away, just shifting it round the house in various states of grubiness

Mr Cheery has suggested a walk to the sho this afternoon, which is all very well but it's at least an hour and a half round trip so we'll have to get a shift on to get back before dark, and it's snowing again now. I think I'd rather be in the bath!

fannyadams · 24 January at 1:48AM

Baileys_Babe said:

Our house is in a slightly unusual location and some delivery people make a right fuss. There are only 5 properties in our postcode 2 of which have been knocked into 1 (us) each property has a name (and officially a number which are only used on official documents). 4 of the properties can be accessed through our gate and the 5th property is opposite next door. The usual comment is now they know where we are they will never have a problem again 😀 the occasional delivery driver makes a right fuss about how out of the way we are and how difficult it is to find us. The nearest modern housing estate is less than 120 metres down our road 🤣 Our previous place was a mile down a narrow unmade road, just think how they would have coped with that.

Most delivery people seem happy to drop it on the doorstep and then wait (or not) at the top of the path for the door to be answered. Your prescriptions guy seems to be a complete pain @rtandon27 is it worth contacting the pharmacy to ask for it to be added to your records that the drop-offs need to be non-contact for medical reasons?

Not a virtue I possess either.

Our letterbox is on the wall next to the door. We were previously (before CV19) considering getting a parcel box (like this) as well, as we often missed deliveries, no longer an issue with OH working from home for the foreseeable and the rest of us confined to barracks most of the time.

My da' had this problem then he discovered https://what3words.com, it's brilliant. He putshis W3W 'address' in the comments section and no more lost deliveries!

Cheery_Daff · 24 January at 2:08PM

Ah yes, we've done that sometimes! I must remember to do it more often!

Well. I reported our missed bin collection early last week and they came and collected everything - bins and recycling, so I suspect that's al gone to landfill together now. And I put our next lot of recycling out on Thursday, and that's not been collected now. It's almost like we miss putting it out one week and they just assume we've died and don't need a collect any more

Minor adventure today. We've been putting off a supermarket trip for various reasons, but given we've got more snow forecast (on top of the couple of inches we already have) so decided to just go while the roads were clear. It was stupidly busy but I was careful and got most of what we needed in a very quick dash round. And then to B&Q (again) for enough insulation to finish the ceiling.

So a bit of dosh spent today, about £70 in the supermarket and £22 in B&Q. But we should be all set now for a week or so at least.

Asked a local company for quotes to replace the windows the other day, not heard back. Not sure if they're doing quotes at the minute, if they can measure outside etc. We'll see.

Right,tea, then ceiling.

Cheery_Daff · 25 January at 11:02AM

Morning MSE chums!

Well, I am delighted to report that I have finished the bulk of the ceiling! I have to leave a few of the gaps for Mr Cheery to add extra bolts in the wall, but since the new insulation was SO easy to install, I've cut and fitted it all anyway, and labelled those bits so he can take it out when he's ready, and in the meantime we can be a little bit warmer.

Not that it's exactly warm in there, with bare stone walls and a draughty back door...

Next minor step might be trying a different type of door seal...

There are a couple of awkward bits where I couldn't get the drill in to attach the battens - I'll need a different tactic for those, so that'll be this week's job. Feels never ending of course, but at least I feel like I'm making some progress!

Not much else to report. Reported the missed bin collection (YAWN). Funnily enough my Wickes customer services friend has gone quiet... so I'll ring the number on the invoice to arrange collection today, and if they never collect that's their own stupid fault (I'll still be insisting on a refund!)

Still no word from the Premium Bonds people about my change of address - there's no way to check online as I have jo online login, and can't register without them sending me a password in the post, which they can't do because it will go to my old address

So I might ring them at lunchtime too.

And in the meantime... work!

Cheery_Daff · 25 January at 3:39PM

Ooh, another email from my pal at Wickes

My refund has been processed, and regarding the picture hanging strips, I am kindly requested to drop them into my nearest Wickes branch whenever I have the time

Considering they're worth £3, and my nearest Wickes branch is a 60 mile round trip, I can't see it reaching the top of my priority list any time soon

not to mention it's not exactly an 'essential trip'! Can't imagine they'll chase me for them...

No word from the internet provider, who sent an advert last week for a faster service - I replied saying yes, but can we check the intermittent service first? Probably confused them by sending a maintenance query to the sales team

Cheery's country living adventure - Page 272

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Cheery's country living adventure

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