Tag Archives: grocery delivery

Ready for Christmas

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We now have a frozen turkey crown, and I have a feeling of foreboding. Julia keeps remarking how small it is  (despite it being a chunk of meat the size of her head which will serve six people). I wonder what she’s planning for Christmas.

Meanwhile, that’s Christmas done for me. If the shops closed tomorrow we have enough food to see us through to Christmas. Admittedly some of the stuff will be tinned beans of various sorts, but we could get through, and we could have turkey for Christmas dinner. Fortunately this won’t happen, but it could. As soon as the freezer door closes on the main meat, I always relax.

Not me.

Obviously, things will be better with a supply of fresh veg, but the pressure is off. There shouldn’t really be any pressure, but it always feels like it is. Ideally we should just eat normally through Christmas, but it doesn’t seem to happen. When i lived on my own, I just used to eat my standard menu, or eat my favourite food as a treat. This does not include either chicken or turkey, if I’m honest. I’d probably just have bacon sandwiches for Christmas Dinner, or beans on cheese on toast. Or soup with a nice cheese and pickle sandwich on the side. I’m not a gourmet.

Tonight’s shopping was not satisfactory. The cauliflower was the size of a tennis ball and there were no courgettes. This means the cauliflower cheese will make a poor main course and there will be no ratatouille, and no courgette in the pasta bake. It’s a minor inconvenience compared to being homeless or out of work, but most lives are made up of such minor inconveniences. And that’s before you get to the avocados, which are a touch riper than I would like. I am sure that the eighteen-year-old me would be staring at this strange elderly man in disbelief. Are cauliflowers, courgettes and avocados now my life? At that age I’m not sure I’d ever eaten a courgette and avocado was a shade of green used in bathroom suites, not a foodstuff.

Life is a strange journey.

And again – not me.

Pictures are of a variety of Santa volunteers who helped out at Christmas on the farm.

Grocery Delivery

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Just as I sat down to blog, a text arrived from ASDA. My delivery is 9 stops away and will be here at 8.58. They have no onions. They are sending ordinary fish fingers rather than Omega 3 enriched fish fingers. I never realised, when I was a young boy, that there would be such things as fish fingers that prevented dementia. If I’m realistic, I still don’t. The correct adult helping of fish fingers is four, according to the internet. Four fish fingers, to me, struggles to look like a meal. Even five, as in the picture, leaves a lot of empty space on a plate.

Paprika Potatoes, Fish Fingers and Mushy Peas – Gourmet Fodder

They are sending filtered milk instead of ordinary milk. It appears to be 25p cheaper until you check the quantity – I am only getting half as much so am basically paying twice the price. They will be getting that back. They will also be getting the carrots back – they are sending a kilo of carrots instead of the swede I ordered. I already have a kilo of carrots coming. Apart from the fact that swedes and carrots are different things, who needs two kilos of carrots? I once told a family member that I thought some of the substitutions were worked out by idiots. They told me that they were actually worked out by algorithms. It’s the algorithms that are worked out by idiots.

The driver apologised for being late but he had had to sort out a problem enroute. He called at an address and found nobody in. When he rang the number on the account they told him they had moved and would like him to go two miles away and drop the groceries at a different6 address. He couldn’t do that because it was not the address on the account and it would have set his timings out. So he rang the office for advice, and they weren’t answering the phone. Eventually he had to ring and tell the people he couldn’t deliver. He was a little upset that someone would be without groceries tonight. Me, I’d just have been annoyed that someone had messed me around, but ASDA delivery drivers, to be fair to them, really do care about their customers.

Vegetables – Carsington Water

Zimbabwe Hyper-inflation Money

Phones, Groceries, Politicians . . .

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Sorry, fell asleep instead of posting.

The phone is not exactly growing on me, but we are settling into a sort of neutrality. I don’t like it. It clearly isn’t bothered what I think. Together we can make calls and send texts.

It also appears to have connected itself to something as i could follow a link from a text ASDA sent. The link told me that my delivery was on its way and had 14 stops to make before it arrived. This information was, like a lot of stuff on the web, useless. All I want to know is that it will be on time. Nothing else really matters. I can work to an hour slot, all else is more than I need to know.

When it arrived the bread rolls were crushed. I want packers who can pack. I don’t need to know there re 14 stops between me and my crushed bread rolls.

I see that Nigel Farage has been denied service by his bank, and that this is a growing trend. Farage is a boil on the bottom of democracy in my opinion. He found a policy, ran with it and milked it. He has produced a career from nothing and is, in my opinion, no better than a politically based reality TV star, or internet influencer. They, as you know, are not my favourite people.

However, I don’t think that means that banks have the right to make moral judgements about their customers. They don’t seem to make judgements about their hugely wealthy criminal and despotic customers, so why have a go at Farage? Anyway, once you get into politics and morals, how long before they start sacking their own executives for being devoid of morals, ethics and basic humanity? It’s a slippery slope . . .

The Second Part of the Story

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Here, as promised, is the second part of my shopping story.

I ordered groceries from Whoosh, the instant delivery service from TESCO. It costs £5 and promises delivery within the hour. A normal home delivery from TESCO is around £3.50 so £5 isn’t too bad. Prices always seem a little higher than normal, and you can’t get a great range, but it’s adequate for what it is – a service for affluent young people and older people who can’t plan properly (like me).. It’s a bit like shopping against the clock, because they give you a time limit and the website isn’t the quickest thing to use – you can’t always find what you want and they keep interrupting with automated filling in of search terms, which is a nuisance and a time waster. All in all, I don’t like the system, but sometimes, like when you want to buy chocolates and cake to stop your wife passing judgement on your housekeeping skills, it’s useful.

Well, it would be if they delivered the right thing.

I knew there was a  problem when I opened the bag and found a lettuce on the top. Still, a random lettuce isn’t the end of the world. Then there was a bag of salad, organic bananas and free range eggs. And cat food and toothpaste for kids. And cheap jam tarts. As you know, I have got rid of the kids, don’t have a cat, distrust salad and think free range/organic is, in the main, a rip-off. That leaves me with cheap jam tarts. Why waste the money? They are all crumbs and thin layers of cheap jam. If I’m going to kill myself with fat and sugar (and I am, have no doubt about it) I’m going to do it in style. At least the milk was full fat and the strawberry jam was a good brand.

Anyway, I rang the helpline. They couldn’t help. What they could do was issue a refund (though it will take several days to show up) and tell me to keep the groceries. So I have £30 of free groceries. Fortunately I can use most of them, though I my have to buy a cat.

The header picture is just a stock cake picture in a story that does not actually involve Battenberg. Sorry about my low standards of journalism.

Groceries

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We were due to have a food delivery today. However, TESCO sent me a text saying that due to “technical reasons” they were going to have to alter the time slot, and would message me to let me know the new time slot.

I can see how this happens, so wasn’t too bothered, at least it wasn’t a short notice cancellation, like we have had twice before. So I waited . . and waited . . .

There was no message, but when I looked at my account to finalise the order I noted the new time slot. Not only was it mid-morning, a time I consider inconvenient, but it was tomorrow, instead of today. This was annoying. It’s not that I don’t have enough food in, it’s that they made a major alteration and weren’t even efficient enough to tell me.

The delivery charge was £7 and they were still going to charge me that even though they weren’t going to deliver at the right time, or the right day. ASDA are able to deliver, their delivery charge is £5 cheaper and the groceries are £3 cheaper. I know this because I just ordered off them and cancelled the TESCO order.

ASDA also has better availability – TESCO seems to have run out of some items very common items. To add insult to injury, they have run out of some of the items they are advertising on TV. I could go on about the deficiencies in TESCO management, and compare the efficiency of the two shops, but I won’t. It’s Christmas and I have better things to think about, such as the choice of soup for lunch.