General Chat

Sorry, Florence, I got that wrong. :-(

I have the opposite, Florence!
Although I'm 92 miles away from Paisley, in a quiet rural area, I have a PA postcode, so some insurers assume it must be crime-ridden here.

Some companies (I'm not talking about food delivery now) either won't deliver to many PA addresses, or else add a hefty surcharge (I've seen as much as £25) because they assume they're all on islands.
Some PA postcode areas do include islands - but also many mainland addresses, including mine - easily accessible on main roads, and not involving any ferries.

No we dont have an IV postcode, its HS Andys mum. I have just had my Saga contents insurance renewal and its gone down to just £32 for the year instead of £75. When I tel and queried it, she said we live in the safest and lowest claims area in the uk :-D :-D

ArgyllGran, when I first moved here I was very surprised to discover that all the southern Hebridean Islands (Islay, Tiree etc) have Paisley (just outside Glasgow) postcodes and the northern ones, including the Outer Hebrides have Inverness ones.

As the Hebrides are all off the west coast and Inverness is on the east coast this seemed very odd!

We have a Glasgow postcode (40 miles away by road) and had a great argument with our car insurance people who insisted that we lived in a city! Previously, in the south of Hampshire, quite close to both Southampton and Portsmouth, we were classed as rural!

I used the delivery service right at the beginning of Covid, but I just couldn't get enough items to last us until the next delivery. I usually shop twice a week I was lucky to get one delivery a week. Then my friends started adding items to their deliveries for me; they have smaller households so didn't get to the limits on items; so I'd be running to people's houses after their deliveries to pick up my items :-)
I hated missing the sale items often so as soon as I could I returned to the stores.
My daughter is going to be doing home deliveries from Walmart for her groceries from Sept as she won't have a car and carrying everything on a bus isn't the best. If all the girls in the house order together they'll split the delivery charge down to only a dollar or two each.

No ArgyllGran - I'm sorry I phrased that weirdly. My order was on his van already.

When I booked the time slot the previous week there was an image of a little green van next to the two-hour slot which indicated that the driver would be in our area delivering during that particular time slot.

I have just tried What Three Words and found it would not work any better - unless I was using it wrongly; I know about its use in emergencies but it doesn't seem to work better than the driver using postcodes and a map.

If he was already delivering when you placed your order, didn't he have to go back to base to pick up your order, JL?

Andys Mum, I had an Ocado delivery during the week and when I'd booked the slot I'd chosen one with the little green van next to the time period indicating that the van was already delivering in my area then. Naturally, I chose that. Abut 20 minutes before the due hour, the driver rang asking if he could deliver my groceries in a couple of minutes. I said yes as I was in.

When he came he told me he was in the street around the corner and he did not want to double back from another nearby area in the same postcode so it looks as though what your driver told you about sorting out the deliveries in the postcode themselves is also true here.

We and they need to get used to 'what three words' as it may be easier for delivery drivers.

That reminds me of the time an electricity engineer came to my house, trying to instal a smart meter (He couldn't, but that's another story!).

For some reason, he'd been sent from Birmingham to the West Highlands (where's the sense in that?!) to install a whole lot of meters at various addresses.

He hated the experience! He was used to working in the city, where houses are arranged in rows, with numbers and street names.
Here, he was struggling to find scattered rural houses which only have names.
No streets. and no numbers, and many not even having their name displayed anywhere.
And huge postcode areas, as you say, Andysmum.

New post-"persons" also find this area hard to get to grips with, until they figure out where the various houses are.

One driver told me that they don't get given their slot's deliveries in any sensible order, just all the ones in a particular postcode grouped together. In this area, the postcode (first bit) covers an area about 25 miles by 20 in a straight line, so about twice as far by road, including several villages.

The regular drivers get to know the most sensible order to deliver, but this particular one rang up to ask exactly where I was and then told me he had already driven past three times going to other houses!! I asked him where his next deliveries were and put them in a sensible order for him.

He was very grateful, but what a waste of time and fuel!

I was also puzzled as to why you don't get your invoice the day before Florence.

Yes, that's the problem here too, Florence.

Not many vans, with a big area to cover, much of it rural with scattered houses, which also means more time taken up by driving than is the case in a town, and therefore fewer deliveries can be done.

Andysmum, daughter orders it on her account but sometimes we dont get a delivery time until say 1/2 hour before they arrive and sometimes we get a text message and they appear within 5 minutes. So not always time for her to check her emails quick enough

As Im in a smaller place, slots are still hard to get sometimes. Its a case of if there is a slot, just bag it and put a couple of items in the basket. Then sometimes later we cancel if we change our mind. The priority slots did not guarantee us a delivery even during lockdown.
I tel Tesco customer services and said, if its not guaranteeing us a place, what's the point on being on the priority list? he said, ah well its because you don't live in a big city like Glasgow or Inverness. Your nearest town only has about 5 delivery vans!

We do manage to get slots but not every week, its a bit hit & miss. Daughter is often awake at 3am, so this is sometimes when she manages to get a slot!

Florence in the hebrides

Florence, don't Tesco send you the invoice by email before they deliver? Mine does and at the top are the details of anything missing, substituted or with a shorter than usual sell-by date.

I use home deliveries because the driver will carry all the heavy stuff upstairs for me. I had reached the stage of having to make several journeys carrying it all up from the car, so this is well worth the small delivery cost. I use the Flexi Slot and have not had any problems getting a slot within a couple of days of ordering, except at Christmas.

I also still drive, so go into town once a week and choose my own fresh veggies and anything else that Tesco's don't stock or didn't deliver.

Tesco no longer hand you the invoice when they deliver and this was handy to look through the list quickly to see if anything missing or substituted.So when it arrives, i actually dont know if the whole order is there.
I did think to print out my order one week but it took 4 sheets of paper!!! Normally its just 1 sheet both sides.

I ve just applied for mine maggie as well

Von, concerning bags on wheels, my eldest bought me one on my 40th birthday! :-S
It was a fold up number.
I didn't use it until over 20 years later, when it broke on the first use :-(
I always take a rucksack and nylon bag with me when I go into town.

That's just reminded me - daughter is now 42 - I know what to get her for Christmas! :-D :-D :-D

Edit: My bus pass arrived today :-D :-D

I have had deliveries from start of lockdown and tend to use Ocado, Waitrose, Sainsburys and Iceland.

In March 2020 I could not get a delivery spot with any of the major grocery stores for love nor money.

As I had placed orders on Friday lunchtimes at work during the 1990s for Saturday morning deliveries with Iceland - the only grocery delivery in our area then - I tried that store in March 2020 and it still recognised my 1990s password. The choice is limited but I will stick with them as they have always been friendly, efficient and the couple of substitutions have been brilliant and would have cost me much more. There is no delivery cost with Iceland if the order is £40 or over.

I will also stick with Waitrose because during early lockdown it pretty quickly realised I was getting on and offered a choice of delivery spots. No cost with Waitrose either until Jan this year when it introduced what I think is a fairly high cost.

Ocado charges 99 pence delivery on Wednesdays and I’ve had a couple of free deliveries from them too.

Only once did two items arrive worse for wear:

Two beef tomatoes from Waitrose - who refunded me without question; and

Short shelf-life bread which did not matter as I keep my bread in the freezer because I am the only one in the house who eats it.

I am defo sticking with deliveries as I realise why I tended to shop with Iceland online while I was working … I hate trailing round grocery stores.

Edit: just read through the replies. Von, I am following in Mum’s footsteps as she always had foodstuffs delivered too.

Oooooo I got mine just in time :-) they cancelled my daughters at the last minute, they did not give a reason…so V has emailed them to find out what was going on…this is the 2nd time for her :-(

I hope no one is waiting for a Tesco delivery this afternoon. Seems they have cancelled them all. Computers………..!