This time, UPS cocked up big time. I ordered a part from Field Components in the US, who sent it out by UPS. I received a confirmation of delivery by e-mail yesterday - to the wrong address with a photo of someone else's front door! When I contacted them, they were very unhelpful, claiming that it was the address information they had received from Field Components. I confirmed with the invoice and told UPS that no, FC had the correct address for me so it must be UPS at fault. They said they would call me back, which is a courier euphemism for "go away, we're not going to do anything".

Very luckily, the kind person to whom the parcel was delivered (somewhere else in Basingstoke) has just dropped it off to me, because the invoice from FC visible through the window has my correct address on it!

So thanks very much to my kind neighbour and a big black mark to UPS who don't have the customer service to admit they may have been wrong and to send a driver back to the wrong address.

I have ordered a couple of items in the last few months where there was an option to pay extra for next day delivery, or named date delivery. I opted for standard delivery. But in every case my orders arrived the next day. This has happened to me on several websites.

Evri again. They 'tried three times' to deliver a package to me and then sent it back to the supplier. Despite my having identified a safe place for them to put deliveries.

The supplier was very sympathetic (I get the idea they have lots of complaints about Herpes Evri) and promised to re-ship it to me at no cost.  Only, they haven't received it back yet.

Perhaps they didn't have a safe place?


Words fail me with this effin' company.

I was, they said, so that they could start with a "clean slate" this time.  Same grubby slate, same broken pieces of chalk.

Remind me.  What are the other six signs of the apocalypse?

It's my Mum's 99th birthday on Saturday, so I've just ordered her card via Funky Pigeon, who have never let me down, and who I use exclusively these days.  As per usual I ordered the biggest card they can provide.  Mum's blind as a bat and probably won't even be able to make that out properly, but I tried. 

Card, plus a box of Lily O'Brien's finest chocolates were duly ordered and then came the time to pay.

I should say that  All greetings cards are exorbitantly priced in my opinion, and I'd rather put the money towards a present. I'd never send another one given the choice, but that's another story. 

Back to Funky Pigeon though... The final tally was made and the wonderful news included at the checkout was that my card will be "delivered by Evri". 

I have minor hopes that it may reach her before her 100th.

N.B.
Yes, it would have been easier to deliver it by hand, but if my card doesn't arrive early Mum spends the week worrying that I'm lying dead on the floor or something, as I discovered last year.  She actually asked my cousin, who was visiting, to ring me to make sure I was OK, as my card hadn't arrived  ...three days before her Birthday. 

One of my tungsten cubes has arrived in the UK on 19 August and has gone into the customs black hole, only to probably arrive on my doorstep in a few days' time completely unannounced. The other is still in China having done the usual tour of leaving and arriving at the same depot several times.

The joys of ordering from AliExpress.

It's probably "in the Hudson".

Apparently, it was sent to Jamaica, NY.  I know that because it left there at 12:42 this morning, for another unknown destination.  I wonder where it's going to end up next.

So far, it's taken 4 days to travel about twenty-three and a half miles.  I calculate that that the full journey, of approx. 3,469 miles will take around 1.62 years at the current speed.