Deliveries???

['CHARD]

3 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

Our postie absolutely hates the unsolicited crap sent out by irresponsible characters like our Cotswold District Council ego maniac (Leader) , and of course Bojo, because they have zero value   

 

There seem to be a lot of snowflakes heading for the hills (literally in some cases) pn 80% wages, at the first hint of danger while expecting other folks in retail on a fraction of their wages to slog on regardless. 

 

My wife works in Tesco and has stayed in bed today with a headache and cough. Just hoping it isn't Chinese Lurgy.  

 

For some balance - If a household (think single person household especially) doesn't have or doesn't bother with television (my late parents, for example), doesn't 'do' the internet (many friends' parents fall into this category), and doesn't have a newspaper delivered, the letter from the government telling folk to stay indoors takes on a whole new sense of criticality.

 

A proportion of these 'snowflakes' you mention so pejoratively might melt if they contract the Covid-19 virus. The whole point of people staying away from workplaces is to enforce social distancing to depress spread of the virus.  Also in the '80%' wages category you presumably deliberately omit to consider the furloughed element of the workforce who have little or no choice about their current or impending circumstances.

 

Don't recognise 'Chinese Lurgy,' although I believe the POTUS uses such terminology.

[Ryde-on-time]

17 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

A lot of couriers' business has a fair proportion of B2B deliveries, if businesses are reducing staff/operations this could account for an impact. B2C may be busier now but with (probably) more miles between drops.

That is certainly my experience at work where I run the servicing and calibration lab and I'm one of a handful of staff still in work (I can't work from home). Before things kicked off we would receive 10-25 royal mail parcels and 10-25 courier parcels a day. This week we have received a total of 1 or 2 parcels each day.

 

Chatting with our postie and courier drivers they all feel that overall there are far fewer parcels going through the system at the moment. I therefore will not hesitate to order things online as I need them. I feel that the as well as shops appreciating the business, RM & couriers will too

[Ben B]

Quote

I appreciate the sentiment of the OP but I feel that if we are confined to barracks, so to speak, then the ability to get our non essential shopping still, is a bonus.

 

If it were a problem then it would have been shut down two weeks ago. The Govt have acted to  discourage us from congregating around shelves in shops but has not told us to give up entirely.

 

Mail order is available at present so I see no need not to use it. It could easily have been closed down too.

 

I have made my first order today since shut down to replenish the consumables.

 

Will I do it again? Definitely,

 

Do I feel guilty? No, but then I don't feel 100% comfortable either.

 

Maybe the curtain twitchers are having an affect, maybe the  ever present only go out to shop for necessities etc message is  generating subliminal feelings of guilt about buying non essentials. Maybe I'm worrying about the mechanics of accepting a delivery whilst maintaining social distancing.  Maybe I've become paranoid that every object is alive with vicious germs plotting murder.

 

Who knows? We are living in stange times. Normal has changed. It's bound to have an effect.

 

   I went to Morrisons last week, and it was a horrible atmosphere...  I went for food, but thought I might get a few non-essentials like a couple of films for the kids to watch, or get them a magazine each too.  But the entry/exit system meant the people coming out of the shop had to pass the queue of frustrated, angry people waiting to go in, and that meant an awful lot of judgement was being passed on the contents of trollies, and the time it had taken people to shop for 'luxuries' which had made the queue outside longer.  There was a definite impression that you ought to be in there for bread, milk, loo roll, and nothing else.  The angry comments and glares if people tried to get more than the small-sized trollies ("Big trolly?  One of them panic-buying tossers are yer?"), and the less said about if you paused in the magazine/DVD aisle, the better...  In the end the peer pressure of it all meant I just got food.  

   Were the 3 Easter Eggs in my trolley essential?  In the sense that we wouldn't starve to death for not having them, no they weren't essential.  As presents for the kids who are scared sh*tless by this mess, and who are upset they won't get to go to Wales and see their grandparents this Easter, or possibly at all this year?  Yeah I'd say they're essential for raising morale, but I don't like having to stand and argue the toss with grumpy strangers.  There were older people wearing poppy badges, old medals and things, loudly discussing about when they had rationing, people wouldn't be trying to buy so much unnecessary rubbish, etc.  So in that atmosphere, ordering things which aren't food but which might make this isolation more bearable, particularly for youngsters?  Mail Order is the only way, so I really hope it continues.

 

   As for the curtain-twitchers effect?  Definitely in force round here.  I've only been out once, for my 'allowed daily exercise'.  I practised social distancing, I crossed the road to get away from people... but I was glared at from behind windows by what seemed like every person on my street, and a dad who was out with his son walking their dog was giving me evils because his child was screaming in fear that "there was another person!  I'm going to get ill!!!" which led to even more people appearing at the windows staring at me.  It was such an unpleasant experience I decided not to try again.  As soon as you go outside to even get the bins or do some gardening on the front you get curtains flicking open and people watching you.

 

Sorry for the slightly OT rant.  Guess I need to order some model-making bits and calm down

[Derekl]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

I've a feeling that, if the current situation continues for a while (as is likely) then RM will stop accepting parcels for overseas - if Aircraft can't fly (and presumably shipping is affected too) then very soon RM will be overwhelmed with packages it can't forward.  Warehouse storage costs money....

 

There are a good few freight flights at present - apparently (I don't guarantee this, as I don't know the source) 48 a day into Heathrow as opposed to the normal 47 a week. And, of course, there are a lot of freight flights to/from East Midlands airport. I assume that operators who can't fly passengers are piling into freight. So that aspect probably will be okay, but who knows???

[Derekl]

11 minutes ago, Ben B said:

As for the curtain-twitchers effect?  Definitely in force round here.  I've only been out once, for my 'allowed daily exercise'.  I practised social distancing, I crossed the road to get away from people... but I was glared at from behind windows by what seemed like every person on my street, and a dad who was out with his son walking their dog was giving me evils because his child was screaming in fear that "there was another person!  I'm going to get ill!!!" which led to even more people appearing at the windows staring at me.  It was such an unpleasant experience I decided not to try again.  As soon as you go outside to even get the bins or do some gardening on the front you get curtains flicking open and people watching you.

 

Odd reactions - I take a regular walk and notice that there are a lot more people around walking - all generally friendly and careful to practice social distancing - I notice kids tend to take  a sharper view, perhaps having been given dire warnings by parents. But nothing uncomfortable or untoward.

[Ben B]

Quote

Odd reactions - I take a regular walk and notice that there are a lot more people around walking - all generally friendly and careful to practice social distancing - I notice kids tend to take  a sharper view, perhaps having been given dire warnings by parents. But nothing uncomfortable or untoward.

 

It's something of a legacy from about 10 years ago, the general atmosphere on my street... we had a lot of antisocial behaviour hereabouts from a group of kids who thought nothing of deliberately kicking footballs into windows, posting dog-muck through letterboxes, and climbing into back gardens to nick things.  It ended about 5 years ago when they got old enough to spread their madness elsewhere in town, but the results were that a lot of neighbours invested heavily in CCTV and are still afraid to open their doors when you knock.  Even before this mess, going across to some of the homes to collect a mis-delivered parcel would result in conversations through letterboxes along the lines of "my husband will bring it to you when he gets back from work, please go away"... if you were lucky, someone might open a door on the chain on the third or fourth attempt at knocking.  So you can imagine the atmosphere of paranoia when you might think anyone at the door might be some sort of plague-bearer...

[Phil Parker]

58 minutes ago, Ben B said:

The angry comments and glares if people tried to get more than the small-sized trollies ("Big trolly?  One of them panic-buying tossers are yer?"), and the less said about if you paused in the magazine/DVD aisle, the better...  In the end the peer pressure of it all meant I just got food.  

   Were the 3 Easter Eggs in my trolley essential?  In the sense that we wouldn't starve to death for not having them, no they weren't essential.  As presents for the kids who are scared sh*tless by this mess, and who are upset they won't get to go to Wales and see their grandparents this Easter, or possibly at all this year?  Yeah I'd say they're essential for raising morale, but I don't like having to stand and argue the toss with grumpy strangers.  There were older people wearing poppy badges, old medals and things, loudly discussing about when they had rationing, people wouldn't be trying to buy so much unnecessary rubbish, etc.  So in that atmosphere, ordering things which aren't food but which might make this isolation more bearable, particularly for youngsters?

 

When I'm feeling generous, I think that people doing this are reacting to a situation they can't control by trying to impose control on it in the form of new rules they have invented. The number of threads on here and elsewhere I've seen with people loudly saying no-one should order model railway items because they aren't essential is amazing. I sometimes wish we had a proper shutdown - no drink other than water. Only bread to eat (you don't need anything else). No TV and radio for 5 minutes on the hour only. No Internet either. After all, that's what people seem to want...

 

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

As for the curtain-twitchers effect?  Definitely in force round here. 

 

Not a problem around here, but it's interesting to see how quickly the British people show they would have enjoyed helping the Stasi. Again, people are scared (thanks the media) and lashing out. And some are just really unpleasant and always were.

 

I suspect the legacy of damage to the countries metal health is going to last longer than the virus.

 

[boxbrownie]

48 minutes ago, Ben B said:

 

It's something of a legacy from about 10 years ago, the general atmosphere on my street... we had a lot of antisocial behaviour hereabouts from a group of kids who thought nothing of deliberately kicking footballs into windows, posting dog-muck through letterboxes, and climbing into back gardens to nick things.  It ended about 5 years ago when they got old enough to spread their madness elsewhere in town, but the results were that a lot of neighbours invested heavily in CCTV and are still afraid to open their doors when you knock.  Even before this mess, going across to some of the homes to collect a mis-delivered parcel would result in conversations through letterboxes along the lines of "my husband will bring it to you when he gets back from work, please go away"... if you were lucky, someone might open a door on the chain on the third or fourth attempt at knocking.  So you can imagine the atmosphere of paranoia when you might think anyone at the door might be some sort of plague-bearer...

Wow....so nobody went out to Clap for the Carers last night then? 

[chris p bacon]

1 minute ago, boxbrownie said:

Wow....so nobody went out to Clap for the Carers last night then? 

 

They probably tried giving the clap to carers.....

[halsey]

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

There were older people wearing poppy badges, old medals and things, loudly discussing about when they had rationing, people wouldn't be trying to buy so much unnecessary rubbish, etc.

 

lack of respect...………….. v.poor

[GWR-fan]

27 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

...............................................Again, people are scared (thanks the media) and lashing out. And some are just really unpleasant and always were..............................

 

 

 

 

In Victoria,  the state government has banned the sale of guns and ammunition.  In the past two weeks in the state sales have doubled for these items.    In the U.S. gunshops had been closed by government order as non-essential.  However,  it did not take long before a court decreed that gunshops were "essential" and so the gunshops re-opened.    I feel that too many people see reality TV shows such as "Doomsday Preppers" as real possibilities.

[Ben B]

Quote

lack of respect...………….. v.poor

 

I do respect such people as a rule; I have living family who have served in the past, and some who are serving at the moment.  And if I have caused you or anybody else offence, then I sincerely apologise, it was not my intention.

 

My issue on the day was that there seemed to be a number of older people who were making loud comments in the queue, particularly about us younger shoppers, and our buying habits, and commenting about the positives of rationing, and so on when they were youngsters.  Whilst I appreciate these are unusual times, I'm a regular shopper in that Morrisons, and you don't see people in there normally wearing quite so much regalia, especially in March... I admit it's my interpretation, but there did seem to be a certain amount of people out to make a point on the day.

 

Quote

The number of threads on here and elsewhere I've seen with people loudly saying no-one should order model railway items because they aren't essential is amazing.

 

To get this back on-track, as a pleasant surprise I took delivery of some model-making bits and pieces about an hour ago.  I wasn't expecting it, being an eBay sale won a little whilst ago, as I thought the seller wouldn't have posted until after the lockdown was lifted (and wouldn't have blamed them for waiting until it was safer to go to a post office).  Cheered me up a bit

[caradoc]

2 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

   I went to Morrisons last week, and it was a horrible atmosphere...  I went for food, but thought I might get a few non-essentials like a couple of films for the kids to watch, or get them a magazine each too.  But the entry/exit system meant the people coming out of the shop had to pass the queue of frustrated, angry people waiting to go in, and that meant an awful lot of judgement was being passed on the contents of trollies, and the time it had taken people to shop for 'luxuries' which had made the queue outside longer.  There was a definite impression that you ought to be in there for bread, milk, loo roll, and nothing else.  The angry comments and glares if people tried to get more than the small-sized trollies ("Big trolly?  One of them panic-buying tossers are yer?"), and the less said about if you paused in the magazine/DVD aisle, the better...  In the end the peer pressure of it all meant I just got food.  

 ...

   As for the curtain-twitchers effect?  Definitely in force round here.  I've only been out once, for my 'allowed daily exercise'.  I practised social distancing, I crossed the road to get away from people... but I was glared at from behind windows by what seemed like every person on my street, and a dad who was out with his son walking their dog was giving me evils because his child was screaming in fear that "there was another person!  I'm going to get ill!!!" which led to even more people appearing at the windows staring at me.  It was such an unpleasant experience I decided not to try again.  As soon as you go outside to even get the bins or do some gardening on the front you get curtains flicking open and people watching you.

 

Sorry for the slightly OT rant.  Guess I need to order some model-making bits and calm down

 

Your experiences could not be more different from mine ! On walks in my local area nearly all people are quite happy to take 'avoiding action', and more are greeting each other than ever before. I've not seen a single curtain twitch either.

 

And today I visited a supermarket, and as well as essential supplies, bought a railway magazine. No-one looked askance at me, the only issue I had was at the checkout where the operator thought four things, of two different types, but from the same supplier, breached the 'max three items' rule, but that was quickly sorted out. It was amusing too, hearing a broadcast sternly advising limits on toilet roll purchases while passing shelves full of the things !

 

The only slightly annoying thing is when the odd person walking towards me, facing the traffic, makes no move to stay clear, forcing me to walk in the road, but that is pretty minor in today's situation.

 

 

[AY Mod]

4 minutes ago, caradoc said:

It was amusing too, hearing a broadcast sternly advising limits on toilet roll purchases while passing shelves full of the things

 

My god, the things are talking back to us now! It was only a question of time before they took over the world now they've reached critical mass in every household.

[SM42]

Curtain twitching is very catching,  a bit like panic buying it creeps up on you and puts doubts and fears into your head.

 

These extraordinary times will bring out the best and worst in people.

 

The neighbours had a delivery of garden supplies yesterday. I know cos it went dark in the lounge when the truck pulled up. 

Good for them, but I wonder how many thought, "How dare they? What are they doing?"

 

Gardening probably.

 

One thing I did learn though was that there is a local garden centre doing mail order. Just don't tell Mrs SM42.

I've got enough jobs to do as it is and I'm hoping the lack of supplies excuse  will reduce that list.

 

Andy

[AY Mod]

8 minutes ago, SM42 said:

I wonder how many thought, "How dare they? What are they doing?"

 

Next door but one have had a mini-digger delivered via the shared driveway this morning. Initially I thought "Great, noise all weekend whilst he works in the garden" and then thought "I've just got the hump because he'll be having more fun this weekend than I will."

[polybear]

2 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

The number of threads on here and elsewhere I've seen with people loudly saying no-one should order model railway items because they aren't essential is amazing.

 

Perhaps those same people could consider staying off the Internet - after all, they're slowing it down unecessarily for those forced to work from home in order to help their business stay trading....

[MartinWales]

6 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Next door but one have had a mini-digger delivered via the shared driveway this morning. Initially I thought "Great, noise all weekend whilst he works in the garden" and then thought "I've just got the hump because he'll be having more fun this weekend than I will."

As a trade off, you could always ask him to dig your garden Andy!

[ejstubbs]

2 hours ago, caradoc said:

The only slightly annoying thing is when the odd person walking towards me, facing the traffic, makes no move to stay clear, forcing me to walk in the road, but that is pretty minor in today's situation.

 

That does annoy me when people do it to me, as it suggests a basic lack of understanding of how to be a pedestrian (I do wonder how many folks have hitherto barely walked further than across car park).  I prefer to walk on the facing-the-traffic pavement if possible so that I can take the avoiding action.  I'll step in to the road to walk around parked cars if necessary (though I try to avoid pavements lined with nose-to-tail parked cars).

 

Those still harbouring doubts about whether or not to use online shopping and mail order services might want to consider the Government's published guidance on the matter:

 

Quote

Takeaway and delivery services may remain open and operational in line with guidance below. Online retail is still open and encouraged and postal and delivery service will run as normal.

 

 

[Colin_McLeod]

Don't forget to clean/sanatise all incoming parcels then wash your own hands.

 

 

[MartynJPearson]

I'm surprised that people haven't mentioned the biggest moral dilemma regarding ordering stuff online during these times - getting the parcel past the other half!

[Mick Bonwick]

4 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

My god, the things are talking back to us now! It was only a question of time before they took over the world now they've reached critical mass in every household.

 

I had to look at this twice. I could have sworn that the first time I read it there was a reference to a critical mess associated with toilet paper. I must have been imagining things.

Edited April 3, 2020 by Mick Bonwick

[25901]

4 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

Next door but one have had a mini-digger delivered via the shared driveway this morning. Initially I thought "Great, noise all weekend whilst he works in the garden" and then thought "I've just got the hump because he'll be having more fun this weekend than I will."

Not offered to re-wheel it have you lol

[TheQ]

I have two small modelling related parcels somewhere out there,  One supplier has it on the website he's only posting once a week for the duration.  The other said the same in the confirmation of order email. 

 

A house of strong ladies delivery arrived today I got the man with a van to leave it at the gate I collected it when he returned to the van. 

 

I see no problem  with keeping people employed. 

 

We are seeing people walking down the bridle paths in this remote- ish area we've never seen in the last  20+ years. 

 

[Gwiwer]

Deliveries continue to arrive at the Hill of Strawberries.  The one thing we cannot get is a supermarket delivery but everything else is landing on the doorstep as planned.  Cat food (large bag), cat litter (another large bag and which had to be from another supplier because neither had both in stock) and the Fortnum & Masons Easter Hamper (are we living too high on the hog?) have all appeared in the past 24 hours.  A meat-and-veg delivery is booked for two weeks hence and based on the weekly newsletter from our Friends in Camborne today I shouldn't have to wait too long for a fair-sized box and an equally sizeable dent in my bank account!  

 

And on the subject of deliveries Friday night has become Delivery Night rather than out-for-dinner night because we choose to support those local businesses doing it tough and carrying on.