Category: Life: Personal

It seems the package I sent by Special Delivery yesterday failed to arrive on time (“we’ll give you your money back if we haven’t attempted to deliver your item by 12 noon”). Between 11am and midday, I was talking to my GESF and then she had to go and do something – but before she went, she confirmed that the parcel hadn’t been delivered nor had a card been put through the door (and she had been in all day). However, she did tell me that the presents I sent her on Saturday finally arrived (6 days after posting).

So, I tootle off to the Royal Mail’s Track And Trace service to see exactly what has happened. What did it say? “A delivery was attempted for your item with reference [PACKAGE NUMBER] in [GESF’S TOWN] before 11:45 on 20/12/02 and we have advised the recipient that the item is now at their local Royal Mail enquiry office.” *shocked*

On Saturday (14th) at around 4pm, I sent a present off to my GESF by first class postage (costing £1.48) with the hope it’ll be there by Tuesday at the latest.

It’s now Thursday afternoon, and the parcel STILL has not arrived – much to her and my disappointment. 🙁 Royal Mail (the UK’s postal organisation) state on their website that “We aim to deliver more than 90% of First Class letters by the next working day, including Saturdays“. So, assuming that Monday was the first “working day” since posting, it should have arrived at it’s destination (210 miles away) on Tuesday… Two days later and it’s still not there. Working it out from leaving Leicester at midday on Monday (which, considering I caught the last post on Saturday means I’m being generous) – and it arrives first post at its destination tomorrow (we’ll assume 8am, and I hope it DOES arrive then!): it means it had an average speed of 2.28 miles per hour. I could have walked there faster!

Luckily I got a “Certificate Of Posting” (proof that I actually posted the item) – so if it has “got lost” I can claim the value of the items back. But, after speaking to the Royal Mail’s help-desk (08457 740 740) I was informed that the Royal Mail recommends that items posted at any time of the year can take up to 10 working days to be delivered by first class post – and until that time has elapsed they can’t regard anything as “lost”! Ten days? First class?

The Christmas presents I sent down to her today were sent by “Special Delivery” (at a cost of £6.54 as it weighed around 1.5kg) which “guarantees next working day delivery by 12 noon or your money back” (also it allows you to “track and trace” the package via their website and claim up to £250 compensation – “standard” postage only entitles you to 10 times the current 1st class postage rate: at the moment, the maximum compensation is £27).

It’s going to be slightly odd if both parcels arrive at the same time – but posted 5 days apart. But it’s still disappointing that the parcel didn’t arrive in time 🙁

I’m glad Christmas only comes once a year! I’ve just finished off my Christmas shopping today and it was tiring to say the least. I had brought most things from Amazon at the end of last month (involving a total of 5 deliveries!), but I still had a get a couple of little somethings (mainly for my GESF and her flatmate).

Whilst Leicester town centre wasn’t too crowded, I did find some people annoying. My “normal walking speed” seems to be 50 to 100% faster than others, hence when I get stuck behind people and they just don’t move I get slightly annoyed. Oh – in the town centre, there’s a kinda “mini-theme park”: the standard “crane grab” machines, “hook a duck” and what’s termed a “Bungee Ride”. Basically you (and up to one other person) sits in this cage and it fires you up into the air (over 60ft) at over 8G’s. Wow! I didn’t have a go as I needed to do some shopping…

Anyway, after having a turkey lunch in Woolworths (not too bad for £4.99), I then grabbed some more cash and went up to Boots to grab a few prezzies. I just hope my GESF and her flatmate like them – the only thing is that due to how they “work” Christmas (they both go back to their individual parent’s houses), I’ve got to ensure the prezzies get there before Sunday. If I send them recorded post tomorrow morning then they should (fingers crossed) get to them on Friday…

I grabbed a few other things, grabbed a paper and then popped along to Maplins to look at a couple of prices. My printer (HP Deskjet 845C) ran out of blank ink late last week (so much for the “running low” warnings) and I had just used my final CD-R (around 60% from a batch were fault 🙁 ), so I needed to grab those. Maplins price for a black ink cartridge (HP order code 15) was £24.99 and a “cake” of 50 CD-Rs (without cases) was £19.99. Not too bad, but I thought since D.A.Computers was just over the road, I’ll pop into there to compare prices (as I’ve been a customer of theirs for over 10 years, been ‘aware’ of them for around 15 – and, in fact, brought my monitor, current computer and printer from them). Their prices? £22.33 for the ink cartridge and £18.22 for a cake of 50 80-minute CD-Rs.

Well, now I’ve just got to wrap everything up and get it ready for posting…*grr* I hate wrapping as well 🙁 Oh well – “Hi Ho, Hi Ho – it’s off to flibblepenguin we go…”

*sigh* I’ve just been speaking on the phone to my GESF (Green-Eyed Southern Friend: see previous entries). Second time in two days and fourth or fifth time in a week. She really knows how to brighten my day – I just called her to see how she got on earlier today (she had to go for a Doctors checkup) and we chatted for around 30 minutes or so (yesterday we talked for around an hour). I was laughing most of the time at the things she was coming out with.

At one point I managed to steer the conversation over to the emails I’ve had from Someonelikesyou.com. A bit of background about SLY (good acronym really 🙂 ) As detailed elsewhere on the net, this service works by you entering basic details about yourself (name, age, hair colour/color, eye colour, email address) and then 5 email addresses of your friends who you have a “crush” (yuck!) on. They then get an email pointing them towards the site and have to enter in 5 email addresses of people that they think may have a crush on them – and so on. After entering 5 email addresses in, they get 1 clue – another 5 and another clue and so forth.

SLY therefore gets a whole heap of marketing data and a list of verified email addresses (as they send the emails to your potential “crushes” before giving you your clue: if the email bounces, you don’t get your clue). Very “spammy” way of doing business…

What’s this to do with my GESF – well, let me explain…

[Updated: 24/Dec/2002 00:35: The CDs were sold for £22.35 all inclusive. The cheque is waiting at the bank to be cleared and I’ll send them all off as soon as the post offices reopen]

I’ve decided to clear out some of my music collection and sell it via Ebay. If you are looking for brand-artist name singles to help build, complete or start a pop collection then head on over to Ebay and check the list! Auction closes on the 18th of December…

With a reserve price of just £11 for 35 CDs: how can you miss such a bargin – especially with payment being accepted via Paypal, cheque, postal order or banker’s draft? UK posting and packaging is just £3.54!

All 35 original CD’s come in their original packaging/case – with a few including posters and ‘reader survey cards’. A number of the CDs also have bonus tracks.