Yesterday was just one of those days that really gets on your pip. There was nothing major amiss just a few really irritating, niggly little things. The main one being that Mum and I had put in a joint home delivery order with Ocado. The delivery slot was between 3.00 - 4.00 pm and as the order was pretty substantial I'd gone up to Mum's to give her a hand sorting it out and putting it all away, and to bring my shopping back to mine. At 3.30 pm we had a phone call from someone at Ocado saying that there was a problem with one of the lorries plus a lot of delays on the M4 and the delivery wouldn't be with us before 6.00 pm. We were not happy but there wasn't much we could do about it so I headed on home with the intention of coming back for the revised delivery time.
Cue, a whole lot of confusion, different delivery times (one was guaranteed to be with us at 6.19 pm - which seemed ludicrously punctual to my mind), various conflicting phone calls, a wasted trip to the corner shop for me to buy milk to make a white sauce, another walk up to my Mum's (and that walk involves a pretty vertical portion of hill) and - eventually - the order arrived at 7.10 pm, more than three hours after the latest delivery time specified. By this time neither Mum nor I had had our evening meals, we were hungry, annoyed and totally frustrated by such rubbish service from Ocado. In the end I demanded to speak to a supervisor and had to haggle with her to get a £25 refund on the order. They had originally been offering either £15 refund or vouchers but as that was not even 10% of the order total, I wasn't being fobbed off with that. By the time I'd eventually got them up to £25 refund - plus by then the order had finally arrived - I'd pretty much lost the will to live.
I had to pull an extremely heavy shopping trolley back to my house in the pitch dark - though, thankfully, coming home is all downhill - and then start cooking my evening meal. I eventually finished my meal just before 9.00 pm. Believe me, I was not happy.
To add to all that, P told me on Thursday that he was using the Easter break to take a trip to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Now, I don't blame him one little bit as the flight is only 2 1/2 hours from Hong Kong and he has been working flat out since the beginning of December so totally deserves a break. BUT, there are only two places I'd be interested in visiting in the Far East, one is Japan, and the other is Vietnam. I don't know what it is about Vietnam that intrigues me so much but I'm guessing that the continual mention of the country on the news when I was a child in the late '60's / early 70's may have a lot to do with it. Plus, I remember seeing a 'Top Gear' special in Vietnam and it looked a spectacularly beautiful country. I am soooooo jealous that he's getting to go somewhere I'd love to visit. Plus, and this was the final straw, he was complaining that the temperature in Ho Chi Minh City would be 30 degrees and he thought that might be a bit too hot. TOO HOT - he has no idea how thoroughly fed-up we all are in the UK with this never-ending, bone-chilling cold!!
Anyway, apologies for this whiney self-indulgent post - and here's hoping that the rest of the Easter holiday is a lot better than the (not so) Good Friday was!!
You have every right to moan given all that's been happening. Be kind to yourself :)
Posted by: Maureen | 03/30/2013 at 08:48 PM
Sounds hideous! I'd have been livid with Ocado as well. Friends of ours have just come back from backpacking around Vietnam for a month (they're in their 50s and it was their first experience of backpacking). I couldn't wait to hear about it, as like you, I've always had a hankering to go to Vietnam, but their tales were full of cockroaches, awful accommodation, culture shock, and 12 hour overnight bus journeys, rather than the what they'd seen and done, so I was a bit disappointed. I get the feeling they won't be going backpacking again!
Posted by: Caroline | 03/31/2013 at 08:41 AM
Hang in there, nicer weather will be with us before long and you'll enjoy getting out and about again. I went to my first boot sale in six months this morning and although it was cold the sun was out and it was a delight to be there. Hope you have a better bank holiday Monday. Do something nice to cheer yourself up. x
Posted by: gill | 03/31/2013 at 07:36 PM
As parents of small twins who go to bed at 7.30pm, we regularly eat at 9 or 9.30pm. Usually it's fine, but if I get too hungry I can get really cranky!
Posted by: Mrs Madrigal | 04/01/2013 at 11:17 AM