Oxshott Heath

It was a day of mixed weather, heavy rain and then bright skies and sunshine - I timed my morning walk with Xena to get sunshine instead of rain and thought the heath was looking lovely in that light.

I think it is 'frustration week' for me, minor things are happening that are so annoying. I ordered a new rain jacket for Gavin for his birthday, and despite saying delivery would be in 2-3 days time, 3 weeks later I still did not have it. I contacted the seller and they said they had no stock...so I cancelled my order and ordered it from elsewhere. It arrived 2 days later but I was out and for some reason the postman did not leave it in the parcel box as he usually does. I rescheduled the  delivery for today, but it came yesterday when we were not at home and so it was taken to the postal delivery office for me to collect it. This morning I went to collect it and to my surprise they are now only open from 8am to 11am, which were their hours during the Covid lockdown last year. I am getting so fed up with why people are not getting back to normal hours post Covid, it is such a broad excuse used by everyone these days for being lazy  working from home or whatever other reason they give.

I finally made contact with UPS via Facebook - they were not helpful, I got the usual standard bot reply, so I phoned their contact number again and spoke to the hard-to-understand staff member in Manila and told them how unhappy I was with my first shipment attempt being sent back to me because it had perfume in it which they declared was a 'hazardous material' - it is not listed on their list of prohibited items so someone is making up the rules. Now my second parcel was sent back because I did not have a commercial invoice (in triplicate) which is not clearly explained on their website, it is included as a requirement with waybills, vat and other business related things, not for items that are a gift. I was told it is now a new requirement for gifts to have a commercial invoice since Brexit - bloody Brexit!! I then spent hours completing a commercial invoice whereby I had to look up the tariff code of each and every item I had sent, state where the source country was (where it was made which I did not always know), the cost of it, and then pay for courier charges for a third time and repackage it to be sent off. I asked for a refund of courier costs or at least a part refund as I have now paid full courier costs twice already for a parcel to go from the UK to SA and all it has done is sit in their office and then come back to me again. I could not understand her reply so I don't know about a refund, most probably not I assume.

I think an evening slumping on the sofa watching All Creatures Great and Small is required...