I am feeling just a tad negative at the moment. I have just cancelled the long-planned holiday in Austria that we should be flying out for in a few days time. I can't direct any grumbles at the cause of the cancellation because that would be adding insult to the injury my husband has suffered to his back but we are both very disappointed and that makes other things seem more irritating than they would normally appear.
Therefore, I'm going to do a 'grumpy old woman' moan about something other than cancelled flights, travel insurance that isn't worth the paper it is printed on and the lost delights of visiting my brother and walking in the Alps. I turn my attention instead to Amazon and the Royal Mail.
My electric toothbrush died and I saw a really good offer on Amazon and ordered one. An email told me that it would be sent by Royal Mail's tracking service and would arrive on Saturday 23 May. Fine. Saturday passed with no delivery but it was the May Bank Holiday so I thought it was not unreasonable for it to be delayed until Tuesday 28th. As Tuesday wore on with no delivery, I checked the tracking status on my Amazon account and saw that the package had supposedly been delivered on Saturday. Here is where my grumble begins.
The Amazon Help page told me that if a package has not arrived but shows as having been delivered then it is up to the customer to contact the carrier. Why, I ask? Amazon took my money, surely Amazon should ensure the goods are delivered. At this point, I was just a little miffed.
The Royal Mail website had my package registered as having been delivered and signed for on Saturday 23 May at 1.30pm. (A time when both I and my incapacitated husband were at home). The Royal Mail Help page informed me that I should check with my neighbours to see if one of them had taken in the package. Miffedness grew as I trudged around the neighbours in the pouring rain and found no-one had taken in the package. Back to the website help page to find out what to do next: check with the person who signed for the package. Ha, ha. No helpful information on how to find out who had signed for it and no card left by the postman to say where he had left the parcel.
Tetchiness setting in now as I try to locate a phone number for Royal Mail and then spend 45 minutes working my way through their lists of options and recorded messages telling me how wonderful their service is and how I could find all the help I needed on their website. Eventually, I arrived at a human voice, the very carefully chosen voice of Royal Mail's Complaints Department. A voice that undoubtedly belongs to the most handsome, caring and charming young man in the world. How could one possibly feel aggrieved or angry or even the teeniest bit annoyed? Well done, Royal Mail; you should be put in charge of peace negotiations around the world!
Handsome Young Voice apologised profusely and assured me that all would be sorted. And lo, it came to pass that a Royal Mail van arrived this morning, with a Royal Mail postman bearing my package. Would you believe it (well, would you?), it had been delivered to a house in a completely different street on Saturday, the homeowner had signed for it, presumably she had been expecting a parcel from Amazon, had the same name as me and didn't notice the wrong address on the label. Then, this morning she rushed out of her house, hailed the passing post van and handed in the parcel. And here it was, better late than never! Oops.
Displaced frustration, I know. But little things niggle when you are feeling out of sorts. And anyway, shouldn't we expect more than and inefficiency and blustering excuses from the Royal Mail and shouldn't Amazon have chased up that non-delivery?
Everything today seems to be high speed, top volume and low maintenance. I admit that I was glad of many modern conveniences when I was a busy, working mother. Retirement means I have time to make real bread, real coffee, real porridge, to hang the washing on the line instead of putting it in the tumble dryer, to pick flowers for the house and generally surround myself with lovely tastes and smells. It really is worth the time and effort!
However busy I used to be, I would always lay the dining room table properly for our evening meal. Sitting down to eat together has always been an essential feature of our family life, a time to catch up on news, to sort out problems and to add to the repertoire of family jokes. The children have left home but they come to visit and the table has had to grow to accommodate the new family members but we can't imagine life without it.
My work used to take me into the homes of many young parents and I was at first surprised and then saddened to find that few of them owned a table. Lots of modern first-time houses are too small to have a separate dining room or even a kitchen/diner. People seem to eat from trays in front of the television - not a good scenario for encouraging language development in the deaf children I worked with! Deaf or hearing, children learn an enormous amount from the interaction of families and sitting in a row in front of a TV does not provide that. My husband, a maths teacher, wants a campaign to bring back multiplication tables; I want a campaign to bring back dinner tables!
My online friend, Dewena, takes great care over her table settings. Go over and see the lovely china and table linen she uses. We both think that it is worth the effort, even when we are left with only two at the table. I haven't asked, but I imagine she must have lots of cupboards to store all her china, something that I am sadly lacking. Our house is crammed with books and bookshelves and a china collection would be difficult to accommodate.
I inherited an Edwardian teaset from my mother-in-law and it is still in a box, almost two years on. Inspired by Dewena, I took it out and washed it a few days ago. It is fine bone china, hand painted and heavily decorated:
There are 34 pieces altogether: 12 teaplates, 9 cups and saucers, 2 cake plates, a milk jug and a bowl. Mother-in-law, who inherited the set from her mother, kept it in a display cabinet and never used it. Afternoon tea parties went out of fashion in the 1940s and I don't have a display cabinet to show off that Edwardian splendour; what to do with it? I took the photographs to the local antique shop, which specialises in fine china, to get some idea of the value. I thought I might sell it and buy something I would like to use instead. I am glad that I took photos and not the box of china as I might have dropped it when I heard the valuation! £20 is the current value of this 110 year old set. There is no market for fine china.
What will I do? I will establish a new fashion for afternoon tea. I'll bake cakes and scones and make dainty cucumber sandwiches and lay the table with my best cloth and napkins and my fine china. You're invited!
I have been humming a certain tune under my breath for many weeks as the winter dragged on and on and on. I usually think of versions of this song by Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan but, following news of her death a few weeks ago, I'd like to play Deanna Durbin singing Spring will be a little late this year.
I thought that the garden would never recover from the long months of rain. I watched in dismay as the topsoil was daily washed down onto the yard below, forming a sludge that had to be removed quickly before it could get into our narrow drains. Local farmers said the crops this year, if they could ever get them planted, would be poor in quality as well as late because the soil's nutrients had been washed away by the floods. Imagine my happy surprise, therefore, when I returned from my peregrinations to find the sun shining and the garden bursting with blooms! Cue another song:
Here are a few of my garden delights:
The last of the camellias sit next to the first signs of the magnolia and lilac flowers against a remarkably blue sky.
Spring flowers are coming into their own at last.
and the shrubs and apple tree are all in blossom.
I have started to plant up my patio pots, only five weeks later than usual! I had this little companion throughout, almost pushing me away when he caught sight of a worm.
Today, the rain has come back and the temperature has plummeted; gale force winds are forecast for tomorrow. Perhaps our late spring will have lasted for just a few days but it was worth waiting for and perhaps the garden will survive yet again.
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