What to do if a Delivery Marked 'Delivered' has not been - Friday June 8, 2018.

Weeks on holiday are funny things, the first half goes nice and steady; the second half is gone in a blink.

So, a week after arriving, what have I achieved? Not a great deal. Two shutters are painted (and I’m now applying black paint to their metalwork). The kitchen window and frame are prepped for painting and the glazing is re-puttied (is that a word?). The window in the lounge-diner has had it old putty removed. The upper two floors have been vacuumed (including walls and ceilings), various doors have had bolts and sash-jammers fitted and the smoke alarms are up. Oh, and the bed and sofa are assembled and the washing machine is pretty much installed. And there was all of that abortive floor chiselling.

I say abortive floor chiselling as (on my father’s advice) I have decided to abandon that route and instead lay-down hardboard where we intend to carpet and plywood where we intend to tile e.g. kitchen and shower room.

This morning was spent painting, vacuuming and removing old putty. This afternoon has been largely wasted. After lunch I zonked out for a couple of hours again (really don’t understand why I am sleeping so much).  When I awoke, just before 3 pm, I checked my Amazon orders as I was expecting a printer/scanner to be delivered. The status was ‘delivered’ – half an hour ago! Surely I didn’t miss the doorbell? OK, I was asleep and on the second floor – at the back of the house, but I tend to be a light sleeper.  I checked to see if a card had been put through the door or whether the package had been put through the (open) front window – but no.

OK, time to try and contact Amazon. Their page says if an item is marked as delivered and hasn’t been, contact the delivery company (UPS in this case). The UPS site says contact the sender. There appears to be no way you contact Amazon France Customer Services, so I use the UPS contact form (I tried ringing but could I understand the menu options?!).

The dustbins didn’t turn up either, so I Skyped Natasha (my daughter) and asked if she would call them to chase – she did. Tuesday or, possibly, Monday now. I hope we don’t need to be in to receive them because, with Sally joining me from tomorrow, I expect to be out and about a lot more. While I was Skyping Tash I mentioned the Amazon/UPS issue. We messaged for some time on this. Amongst other things, she asked if I had checked with the neighbour. I replied that I hadn’t (you can see where this is heading), as there was no card and as they have zero English if they hadn’t got it I could see it being rather confusing.

After messaging with Tash I headed to Intermarche – it was now gone 5 pm, so another two hours wasted trying to figure out how to query the non-delivery. Before jumping in the car I thought I would check with the neighbour – and there it was. Ho humm.

So, another valuable lesson for living in France: Don’t expect to get a card through the door if a delivery is left.

Well, as mentioned, Sally arrives tomorrow – I’m really looking forward to having her here. She lands at Limoge mid-afternoon, so I’ll be heading there to collect her. The morning will be spent hopefully finishing the vacuuming and doing a general tidy-up.

Final note, last night I had a look to see how much it cost in tolls to travel from Calais, via Paris, to Uzerche: €39.10 – not cheap.