Up early Monday, as I had my shingles vaccination at 9am [2nd part, 1st one was 6 months ago] This was not a 3 minute walk to the little medical centre round the corner, but at the main surgery, 5miles away. It is opposite the excellent Tea Post. I had 4 items to post, so Bob kindly said he'd come with me and sort that out whilst I had my jab. And then we could have breakfast. He had scrambled eggs on toast with bacon, I had a bacon sandwich. All good. Not so good was the cost of postage. Bob said that the book, and the parcel of 3 shed aprons cost £3.99, as did the book. That was ok. The aprons weighed around 800g.
The advent calendar, very thin and flat in a square envelope, and weighing 55g also cost £3.99! Apparently the envelope was too wide for it to be classed as a large letter. I'd been so pleased to find a "proper" Advent calendar for the grandchildren, with a picture of the stable, magi, baby Jesus etc. [No chocolate though] Not doing that again! Unfortunately my arm ached all day which slowed me up a bit, and I had ironing and sewing tasks. But at least it did not rain! I realised that I'd missed out one of the photos from the Festival. The local woolshop had a triangular frame holding lots of colourful balls of yarn! On the subject of wool, did you hear that many knitters are objecting to the new solar power postboxes? 250 people in the village of
Titchfield in Hampshire have signed a petition in support of the "Yarnbombers" who create "postbox toppers"
And
Banxy the mystery knitter of Syston has also expressed her sadness at the March of technology stifling her creativity.
Yes, I agee these guerilla knits are bright and cheerful - but they do look sad and bedraggled if left too long at the mercy of the elements.
Today I'm doing Christmas crafts, singing and storytelling at Little Acorns [the Toddler Group at our chapel] I will enjoy that.
I'll be sad to see the toppers disappear from post boxes. My main objection is when Royal Mail put them up in front of Post Offices; my understanding is that the POs receive income from people buying stamps and posting parcels, so RM are effectively reducing the profitability of the POs. Naturally the PO managers are upset.
ReplyDeleteAnd they wonder why they can't find people to run village post offices....
DeleteHow annoying about the Advent calendar postage! I like the yarn tree. I like the idea of post boxes with solar panels though the yarn bombing IS a lovely fun thing!
ReplyDeleteSolar panels make a lot of sense
DeletePostage costs are a mystery to me. Like you, I have taken something to be posted to be told it doesn’t fit the guidelines. The grandchildren will love the advent calendar I am sure. Have a lovely day with the toddlers-it’s lovely to work with little ones again. Catriona
ReplyDeleteThe toddlers were delightful
DeleteA few years ago my sister posted their local WI calendar to all of her family. Lovely watercolours of Lancashire painted by members. The new, large envelope prices meant that we all had to collect them from the parcels offices, pay the extra, and the handling charge, and DB had to pay to park too.
ReplyDeleteWe take advantage of free delivery and have things sent direct to DD and the boys.
Oh that must have been frustrating!
DeleteOh gosh, I hadn't thought of the new post boxes halting the wonderful knitted toppers that we have on virtually all the post boxes in our town. Yes, they do look a bit sad after a lot of bad weather, but ours seem to get taken in and 'refreshed' each time they have been soaked. At the moment we still have old style post boxes, fingers crossed we get to keep them for a while.
ReplyDeleteNot all postboxes are changing, just the fancy "parcels" ones, I think
DeleteThat's hopeful for us then, as we already have a large parcel box at the sorting office in town. 😀
DeleteThe Christmas tree of yarn was nice, maybe I should make one :D
ReplyDeleteYou must have plenty of odd lengths of leftover yarn
DeleteThe cost of postage has rather spoiled my gift giving, even sending a card isn't cheap, but that's life. I agree about the post box toppers, it's clever and fun but can look a bit sad when weather ravaged.
ReplyDeleteAlison in Devon x
I am sure fewer cards are sent these days, which is sad
DeleteI'm meeting friends for lunch on Thursday and we are all being thrifty and bringing our Christmas cards with us to swap. The price of postage is appalling, and if we are lucky we get about 2 deliveries a week, with lots of envelopes and advertising shoved through the letterbox. Xx
ReplyDeleteSo much advertising with the post here too. Straight into recycling...
DeleteProblems with pricing at post offices seems to be a common theme on both sides of the pond. I was shocked when I recently received a fairly modest sized greeting card from a relative who had had to pay nearly $4 to send it overseas! We have to weigh and measure everything, too. No wonder our post office is not doing well, they are pricing themselves out of existence when there are other ways to get things delivered.
ReplyDeleteFewer letters sent...
DeleteNo one here knits toppers for post boxes, but I'd love to see that! I'm trying to understand why post boxes would have solar panels. We just drop a letter in, already stamped. If you need stamps, then either go in to the post office or many grocery stores sell them and also will weigh parcels.
ReplyDeleteIt is a new idea to enable you to post a larger parcel in the box
DeleteOh, thanks for explaining this. I just assumed the panels were providing electricity to the national grid, not fuelling machines that take the job away from manpower! Disappointing!
DeleteJust yesterday I went to post two advent calendars to my bestie and her daughter in New Zealand. I had made little patchwork Xmas trees again this year but didn't stuff them or include the cinnamon sticks for the trunks because last year it cost a packet to post the envelopes because they wouldn't fit in between those plastic letterbox thingies take the post office use to measure them. So this year, off went flat Xmas trees with no trunks or tiny bells and guess what? The post office assistant didn't even measure the envelopes (she weighed them) and charged £4.30 each one, even though one was much larger than the other and weighed less! The mail costings have me well confused!
ReplyDeletePs last year the envelopes went surface mail and took 6 weeks to get there. Yesterday's went airmail but they couldn't give me a ballpark delivery time!
The postage rates confuse me too
DeletePos I m be the woolly Xmas tree. Have you watched Game of Wool yet?
ReplyDeleteI have not watched Game of Wool. What do you (as a "proper" knitter, imho) think of it?
Delete*I love the!! Flippin' Kindle spell! Game of Wool's a bit like Marmite! I'm in the loathe it camp I'm afraid!
ReplyDeleteOur postage went up, again, fairly recently. The last time I posted a package of homemade gifts to my out of state nieces, I paid more for postage than what I spent on the gifts! These days, I just order gifts that don't have added shipping charges.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem. I have since discovered i could have bought this same calendar online, and had it shipped directly to them FREE. But i wanted to support the local bookshop.
DeletePostage does seem to cost so much these days.
ReplyDeleteA small fortune
Delete