Special delivery

I’d been hanging about, waiting for a delivery.

When the time slot came and went, I went online to track my parcel.

‘Insufficient information – please ring this number.’

So I rang the number three times, went through the various ‘press this number for this, press this number for that’ options, only for the call to be cut off each time.

Feeling increasingly like Victor Meldrew, I went back online. Looking in more detail at the tracking information, I could see that the driver apparently couldn’t find me because he needed more information about my address.

Usually, a house name, street, village, town and postcode does the trick. There are only about six other houses here with the same postcode. It’s not that difficult to find.

Maybe I should have hung out a big sign from the window saying: ‘DELIVERY EXPECTED HERE TODAY’ with a massive arrow pointing to the front door.

I went online again to see if there was a number I could call to speak to a human. When I put the company’s name in the search engine of my laptop, dozens of terrible reviews came up. They could have been written by me.

Awful service. Bad service, would not recommend. Appalling service.

I found a Twitter address so messaged the company that way.

Bingo, a response came back almost instantly from Charlotte in Customer Services. She arranged for the parcel to be redelivered the next day. (I’m waiting for it now.)

Having wasted several hours, I gathered up my things. I just had time to stick the dog in the back of the car and drive into town. I dropped off a package at the post office at a quarter to five and then lugged two bags of unwanted clothes to my favourite charity shop.

It was ten to five and the manager was cashing up.

She took one look at me and the bags. Her face fell almost to the counter, her shoulders dropped and she let out a massive, irritated sigh.

Taken aback, I turned round and walked out of the shop.

‘It’s all right, it’s all right, I can take the bags,’ she shouted after me.

‘It’s okay, I’ll take them somewhere else,’ I said. I don’t usually get the hump and she’d probably had a bad day too, but it’s put me off going back there for a while.

So I drove to West Bay, where the wind whipped up the sea and the dog chased a tennis ball, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.

With the fresh, sea air on my face, the waves crashing on the shingle, I thought to myself, get a grip. If this is a bad day, it’s not so bad at all. I really should be grateful for small mercies.

Any road up, the doorbell’s ringing. It could be my parcel.