Royal Mail Parcel Collect is the title - yet it is for letters too

Sorry, I couldn’t help but chuckle!

I was talking verbal intercourse, you two?

But how would the parcel (or letter) be passed to the postman ixion, if SD has no safe place to leave it, to which he would otherwise direct the postman from the upstairs window? This is a terrible dilemma.

Easy peasy GSM.
On the premise that he is home (self-isolating), he leaves a note on the door.
Postman: please knock for parcel collection
I will come to an upper window with instructions

He then instructs the Postman to retreat to what he considers a safe distance (think Tesco Home Delivery arrangements during the pandemic), places the parcel on the step and closes the door again having done this.

All safe and genuinely contactless.
Job done.

Ah yes ixion, yet I would not use the words with instructions

I would use something like to ask for your assistance with a social distance transfer please

Ingenious. Why didn’t I think of that? I imagined the item being lobbed from the window, with possibly tragic consequences - unless it was a letter, in which case the wind might have caught it …

We’ve missed you StarDreamer!
And I really do mean that

StarDreamer

Ah yes ixion, yet I would not use the words with instructions

I would use something like ^to ask for your assistance with a social distance transfer please^

But it isn't a social distance transfer, is it?
You are not meeting your Postman at all!

Unlike your Tesco delivery chappie (or 'lass', I hasten to add) who had to be present while you transferred from tray liner to own bags.

He/she might not understand what you meant by that very convoluted phrase. ‘Instructions’ is a word most can understand.

In your opening post you said... in case I need to send a letter somewhere when a telephone call or an email are not enough to do what is necessary.

You know your own property and where would be a safe place to collect a letter from. Presumably you have a door and a doorstep. Arrange a collection date and time and leave the letter on the step (or wherever you have informed Royal Mail) - in a protective covering if the weather is poor. You do not need to worry about what arrangements other people make.

FannyCornforth

We’ve missed you StarDreamer!
And I really do mean that

Thank you, that's nice.

OakDryad

In your opening post you said... in case I need to send a letter somewhere when a telephone call or an email are not enough to do what is necessary.

You know your own property and where would be a safe place to collect a letter from. Presumably you have a door and a doorstep. Arrange a collection date and time and leave the letter on the step (or wherever you have informed Royal Mail) - in a protective covering if the weather is poor. You do not need to worry about what arrangements other people make.

I wrote I have not used this yet, but I have found out about it in case I need to send a letter somewhere when a telephone call or an email are not enough to do what is necessary.

When I first knew of Parcel Collect I looked at it but thought it not of any usefulness to me because, at that time, the customer received an electronic graphic of the label and part of the process was for the customer to print the label on the customer's own printer with, I think, the possibility of getting the label printed at some places. So for someone at home without a printer, of no practical usefulnes. I am unsure whether the sending of letters was included at that time.

However, the facility for the postperson to bring the label and affix it made the system useful for me to use.

So, as in my quoted sentence above, I learned about it so that I know about it if I need to use it.

Yes, the idea of the protective covering is good, Tesco food freezer bags are good for such a use as they are translucent and in fact translucent light blue. But it might need to be taped to the door so that it does not blow away.

However, sometimes it could be something of value in the envelope, such as if, as I did once pre-pandemic, I receive a cheque and I need to get it to the bank, so I would not want to leave it outside.

If you don’t have a bank branch nearby, most have a facility for cheques to be paid in at the local Post Office SD.

OakDryad wrote You do not need to worry about what arrangements other people make.

That's right. This is just a happy social chat on Gransnet about the topic, I am not worried about it.

ixion wrote Unlike your Tesco delivery chappie (or 'lass', I hasten to add) who had to be present while you transferred from tray liner to own bags.

Um ... actually no.

The process with the social distance delivery using bags and then the tray liners when the tray liners were used instead of bags from around September 2020 was that it was left on the doorstep, with notification of arrival and acceptance by such methods of through the closed door or from a window or at a distance in some other way.

When tray liners finished in April 2021 , the somewhat unclear email from head office seemed to be either to take bags or boxes to the door and unload from the they-go-back-to-the-store trays oneself while the delivery driver stands two metres away and waits or, if elderly or infirm, one could have the shopping taken into one's kitchen provided one did not have COVID-19 nor possibly had COVID-19.

I was very concerned about this as I did not want to open the door with the driver there and also it would have been ridiculously impossible to do as I regularly take about twenty minutes to get in a grocery delivery and that is fine if the driver has gone but would be ridiculous if the driver had to wait. Also, for people doing that method the trays are stacked so the customer has to gradually move things from the trays.

In the event, having thought about it, I put a cardboard box on the front doorstep and asked for the delivery driver to put my grocery order in the box and I get it in after the driver has gone. Indeed sometimes more than one box, each labelled, so that, for example, shower gel is not put in the same box as the food.

That system has worked fine for over a year now. It works well, the drivers are helpful and it is far quicker for them to do that than wait for me to unload and indeed far quicker than pre-pandemic, though then there was not so much pressure on the system. Yet the drivers stack the grocery in the boxes in a sensible manner, it is not just chucked in. For example, I bought some frames and they place them carefully on the top, window side up so that they don't get scratched. They take pride in doing a good job.

In practice there seem to be a variety of delivery methods in use, depending on the situation and wishes of the particular customer. For example, sometimes the customer puts the door ajar, the driver pauses while the customer goes to the living room and shuts the door then the driver puts the shopping on the kitchen table, closes the door, then knocks the door to signify having left.

Good grief! You are still doing this? And someone would adopt the method set out in your second paragraph? Or are you just imagining it could happen? As Victor Meldrew would say, I don’t BELIEVE it. How ridiculous.

It is incredible GSM !
My Waitrose delivery person brings the trays into the kitchen and we often unload them onto the table together, or I make a start while he/she brings the next one.
(And I have never tested positive either)
What do you understand by Level 3, SD ?
From the ONS
The percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) continued to fall in every UK country in the week ending 13 May 2022
In England, the percentage of people testing positive decreased in all age groups and regions, apart from the South East and South West, where the trend was uncertain in the latest week.
The percentage of people testing positive for COVID-19 fell in all four UK countries

MawtheMerrier asked What do you understand by Level 3, SD ?

From

www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-covid-19-alert-level-methodology-an-overview/uk-covid-19-alert-level-methodology-an-overview

level 3: a COVID-19 epidemic is in general circulation

It is a matter of utility.

To me it is like if one is walking along a public right of way route across a field and one comes to a minor, yet surfaced, road and the public right of way continues through a field on the other side of the road.

Even if one knows, as might well be the case, that there is hardly any traffic on this road and all is quiet and peaceful, a sensible person looks both ways and checks that the road is clear before crossing, because of the potentially serious life-changing consequence if one is hit by a vehicle.

It is no great problem for me to take these precautions. If any one of the drivers were an asymptomatic carrier of COVID-19 and I did not take these precautions I could become ill.

I appreciate that views differ, yet each person can make a choice of how to proceed based upon the totality of his or her personal circumstances and his or her opinon.

There was a time when people taking precautions were praised as thereby not putting pressure on the NHS by needing a hospital bed.

We are at level 3, recently reduced from level 4.

I have no reason to stop taking precautions.

It is like that it is said that people who have survived a famine tend to keep a good stock of food in their house for the rest of their lives, even if they have moved to a country where there is a regular food supply.

Has anyone told the Queen this, and the Royal Family?

Oh dear StarDreamer time to come out of your (bad) dream, wake up and smell the coffee.
That article was updated in November 2021

Blackout restrictions, rationing and the necessity to walk in front of a horseless carriage bearing a red flag have also been suspended.

I answered your question. The description of the levels has not changed.

This from 20 May 2022.

www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-covid-alert-level

The country is at level 3.

level 3: a COVID-19 epidemic is in general circulation

In exactly what ways do you consider that I should change what I am doing given that a COVID-19 epidemic is in general circulation?

Blimey????

Get the jabs and boosters and observe normal rules of hygiene

I agree maw

Musical interlude

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksCR2b6helM