T -1 Day

Final preparations are afoot. As ever with these trips you rely on lots of help from others to make it all work. Some things go really well, others really badly.

And its generally individuals and small companies that help but large companies that hinder.

I have 2 heroes to mention….

• Lynsey, my next door neighbour. Has solved a lot of my problems about looking after my house while I’m away. In fact, so helpful that she has made it onto my GR5 Heroes page;
• Kev W/Nick F (2 people, 1 hero mention) who have agreed to send out my resupply parcels when I need them.

When it comes to villains my first has to be TSB Bank who chose this week to spectacularly screw up my banking (and everyone else’s).

Have no idea if TSB will pay my credit card company direct debits while I’m abroad – TSB claim “yes”, however they’ve made a lot of claims this week that aren’t entirely (or even slightly) true. Just what I need.

My second villain are Post Office/Parcelforce. As an individual the first place I would think of going to send a parcel are the Post Office (for my resupply parcels to France).

I want to send a small box, weight 2.5kg – 3kg. What do the Post Office want to send this (tracked/ signed for/ 4 day delivery) ?…..

Yes it does say £46.

If you look on the web, there are parcel companies who interface between you and the couriers, for example ParcelMonkey or InterParcel. When you look on their sites, to send my parcel ….

ParcelMonkey….

Interparcel…

SAME COURIER, SAME METHOD, you even hand your parcel in at the Post Office.

£15 using an intermediary (and they make a profit on this) or £46 if you do it yourself. A small markup for the extra overhead would be reasonable. 3 times the price is robbery. Thievin’ gits!