Wayward Deliveries

I'm a big fan of internet shopping. I don't mind an occasional visit to the shops as long as they're not too busy and I have a specific item or items to buy. Smash and grab is the approach for me. However, I make the vast majority of my purchases online. What could be easier? Browse from the comfort of my swivel chair, tap in my card details, sit back and wait for the goods to arrive. The process has become even easier since I started my current job, in which I work from home more often than not.  Consequently I am nearly always at home when the goods arrive. Simples, as a meerkat might say.

It's not just at home that I'm able to shop online either. This very morning I was able to visit Amazon.com for some window (or should it be screen) shopping as I enjoyed a green tea at Paddington Station whilst waiting for the 8:15 train to Cardiff Central. The wonders of wifi. If I wasn't writing this blog post now on the train on the way home, I might well be browsing the latest buy one get one free offerings at Tesco.com. Well maybe not, but you get the idea. I'm not so much 'shop until you drop' as 'click and take your pick'.

What's more, I've never really experienced any problems with internet shopping. The one time an Amazon order did fail to arrive, I got onto their excellent customer services and the item was reshipped straight away. Other than that internet shopping has always worked very well for me. Until this week that is. Twice. However, before you start to think that my love affair with cyberspace might be about to go the same way as Katie and Peter's, I need to make it clear that the blame for my most recent couple of orders ending up in the wrong place rests squarely with me.

Mishap number one - with my Mum's birthday coming up on Friday I chose a couple of books from Amazon, took advantage of their gift wrap service and thought I'd chosen to have them delivered straight to the birthday girl in Bromley. I was rather taken aback, therefore, when the postman handed me a parcel yesterday containing the smartly presented items. It seems I had failed to select the correct recipients from my list of addressees. All was not lost though, as I was able to visit the post office, pay a second lot of postage and redirect the parcel to arrive at its intended destination with hopefully a day or two still to spare.

Mishap number two was similar and a kind of mirror image of mishap number one. This was an order from Marks and Spencer for Juliet's birthday on 21st February. With this week shaping up to be more out than in for me I decided to pay the small premium required to specify an exact delivery day. Tuesday was to be the day, and I waited at home patiently throughout the whole delivery window (7:00 am until 9:00 pm). I suppose I should have suspected that all was not well after my first visit to the courier's website, which informed me the package had been loaded onto the van at New Cross at 8:44 am. Not exactly local is it? Anyway, when 9:00 pm had come and gone with no sign of the delivery, I accessed the tracking system again to discover it had been "left in a secure location at the front of the property" at 12:44 pm.

"That can't be right," I fumed "There is no secure location in the front garden, and anyway they would have put a card through the door to let me know of its whereabouts, surely! They must have delivered it to the wrong address! Idiots!'

Nevertheless I got out the torch and looked behind the lavender pots and the wheely bins, but of the expensive birthday present there was no sign.

"Right I'm getting straight on to them to demand they send it out again" I stormed, noting down the order number from the confirmation email. "Oh no! Hang on a minute! The email gives our old house in Bromley as the delivery address. It must be the first order I've made since we moved and I haven't updated my details. Who's the idiot now?"

Hopefully the situation will be redeemed. Mrs Brown, the lady who bough our old house, has been very kind in redirecting the last remnants of stray post to arrive at our former abode, and I'm sure she will respond to the letter I've sent her about arranging a time to collect the package.

So, two birthday presents, each ending up in the locality intended for the other. That wouldn't have happened if I'd shopped the traditional way, would it?

Oh, and just in case you're wondering what took me to Cardiff today, I was visiting a school to do a reccee for two days filming the Open University hope to do there at the end of March. I've been to  Wales on a number of occasions but I've never visited the capital before. There wasn't any time for sightseeing but I did manage to sneak in a photograph of the magnificent Millennium Stadium on my way back to the station. As well as popping into Gap for a quick bit of old-fashioned shopping!