Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

@Obelix-Vendée The idea of eating seasonally is totally alien to the vast majority of people in the UK. They expect everything to be available year round. That said, hot cross buns do seem to be available all year :-)

 

@KT53 is right - seasonality here in the UK is long gone because we have been importing the more "exotic" food stuff all year round for many years. Most shoppers these days would be quite shocked if they were unavailable on the shelves in their local SM.
Expectations re food, like many other things, have risen here over the years and have now practically become a "right" in many people's view.
If you mention seasonal foods, I doubt many would even know what that meant. It is sad but it won't change.

 

Waiting for a parcel being sent through royal mail, checked tracking and out for delevery, so i keep a look out for posty, posty goes flying by, checked tracking again a it say they tryed to deliver it but no one was home!!!!! yes they were i seen you fly by with out even stopping

I hate it when they tell porky's no wonder no one trust what people say any more

 

My doctors rang me over a week ago asking for my blood pressure readings, I said I was going to do it next week, OK she said I'll put a form for you to fill in your reading for a week, OK I said, thanks.
Nothing has turned up, I bet they put a second class stamp on it.

Second class takes about 10 days here, I think they just throw it all in a big pile and sort through it when they have nothing else to do.

RM is the pits these days, I must admit a parcel sent first class is usually ok, but anything second class is mostly binned IMO.

 

I've often found the opposite with 2nd class provided it is Person to Person - same delivery time as 1st class - again person to person.
Organisations/companies sending letters thru the post.........may as well forget it for a couple of weeks ( if you're lucky ).

 

Some firms and the NHS community services use Whistl as part of the postal service. RM still do the final delivery. Hubby received a letter for his 24 hr ecg appointment, which took 12 days to get here. The letter said if they didn't hear from him within 14 days his appointment would be cancelled. Just made it in time. I think it's these other postal services getting involved that's the problem not RM.

 

I ordered some seeds from Cornwall, nothing turned up, I gave them a reminder and three days late they turned up, the first delivery that is, second class stamp, a week later the replacements turned up, second class stamp.
I think they need to call it a 5th class stamp, not worth buying, I never could understand the sense behind it, just do what you are paid to do RM and stop sorting stuff to prioritise and stuff to not worry about, that in itself just seems pointless.

 

I saw a statement from somebody to do with Royal Mail recently where they said they 'endeavour' to deliver 1st class post within 3 working days. The days of 1st class arriving within 24 hours are long gone.

 

I ordered some stuff for OH and was advised it would arrive next day by Royal Mail, when we would be out. With great trepidation, we arranged on line for the delivery to be delayed until today. It was delivered mid morning by our regular postie, who also took a couple of letters I had ready to post. Our Royal Mail deliveries are always good. Helps that being in a rural area, we have a regular person, they deliver the parcels as well as letters, and according to my neighbour, also helps her lift bags of compost out of the boot of her car!

 

We tend to get the same person most of the time delivering the mail, but it's not really up to them what they deliver they just bring what they are given. They do deliver small parcels as well and first class is usually OK, but it's getting to the stage where parcels are cheaper than letters.

 

I had to pay £6.65 for RM tracked 24 with signature for a large envelope. The photo taken was just the bottom of the postie's bag - mainly black and the signature just a cross and JC for initials. Obviously not the recipient's front door or signature. So I had to contact the recipient, who had been waiting - they had found the postie ramming the letter in an external letter box rather than ringing the door bell. I was just glad the letter got there and did not complain. But very expensive. Normally I get a photo of the resident's slippers. Always a laugh.

I remember students delivering post especially at Xmas. I used to accompany my brother on bike going around the village. You could trust people then and there was no vetting.

 

We get a delivery 6 days a week tho there's talk of reducing that. However, the PO here also does parcels so maybe they'll survive a bit longer. Every dwelling has an external post box with a letter flap but also a key and the posties have a master key that lets them leave parcels up to about 30cm wide by 45 or more high and long. They only ring the bell if we have to sign.

I've only ever had problems with parcels when I take the cheaper option of having them delivered to a collection point at the local SM. That works fine as long as the SM person fills the form properly to say where it was stashed in their storage. I have a magnolia Butterflies which ended up being free after being "lost" in the shelving system for a week and coming out looking very sad. It was a replacement for another which they'd stored upside down so all the compost round the roots fell out and the roots dried.

I now pay the extra couple of euros to have home delivery.

 

I've always thought it would be a good idea if we could have a box attached to the house and you open it with a pin number. You would give the pin number to the delivery firm for that one delivery. And then change it after.

 

I've seen more and more garden nurseries with "we no longer use royal mail" or lines to that affect, on their website. I think this is because of their expense for parcels compared to other couriers.