WAITING IN

Saturday was mostly spent waiting in for a couple of books that I'd ordered to finally turn up, after a week featuring a mammoth amount of irritation from dealing with the online retailer who sold them to me, who appear to have decided to alter their delivery system, one which has worked reasonably adequately for several years, presumably just because my circumstances would make the new set-up far more inconvenient.

Mostly, I'm objecting that they seem to have made getting the stuff I ordered to me my problem rather than theirs, however, that rant is already written and parked, because it's far too dull to share with you here... which, I'll have to admit, given most of my other content, would have to be going some.

The problem with waiting in is that it gets in the way of getting anything else done. You can barely dare to get out of earshot from any of your doors just in case that soft tapping occurs when you've sneaked upstairs for a moment, and return downstairs to find the latest "we tried to deliver your parcel" card sitting smugly on the doormat.

So, having spent a long time on the phone midweek, I finally got them to agree to try again on Saturday and the courier without a depot to otherwise collect from were supposed to make another run at getting my order to me sometime between 7.00am and 9.00pm, which rather put the kibosh on me doing anything else for the duration.

Sadly, I did have to pop out to take my beloved to the railway station at about 9.30am because she had an appointment arranged long before this latest opportunity, but, rather than accompanying her, maybe having a cup of coffee or a mooch around the shops, instead I was committed to being at home at the convenience of this courier service.

Rather more pleasingly, at least, the email telling me that my order was "out for delivery" didn't arrive until after I got back, so there was still a chance that my order would appear and I remained in limbo until either the books arrived, or I received the third "we were unable to deliver" message.

Anyway, I remained glued to the sofa, tapping away at my keyboard and watching some DVDs for several hours simply because I could not dare to move, just in case the mystery man turned up to make the delivery.

Eventually, of course, he did turn up, but not at the door I'd prefer him to, and much of the anxiety faded away and I could get on with my day, noticing that the packaging seems to only allow for three goes, and wondering what would have happened if I'd been too far away to hear his feeble knock...

To be honest, I'm seriously having to reconsider this whole online shopping option given that the goods no longer seem able to be sent to me in such a manner that I can actually easily receive them. At least with the Royal Mail I had a chance to use the "Option B" and go to the relatively local Post Office when they didn't find me at home, whereas this method seems to assume that I can totally rearrange my life to fit around their needs, or that I'm prepared to just let them cancel the order after they are "unable to deliver" after a week of waiting and several alleged attempts to deliver.

Things used to be so simple... but the company involved really don't seem to care about that.