Archive for 2021
Amazanalysis
Amazon Subscribe & Save.
In theory, Amazon Subscribe & Save is a great idea - you and Amazon know in advance what's been ordered, you and Amazon agree a schedule of delivery dates (so you can plan to be available to receive deliveries), each order should arrive as one delivery (to save planets), and there are discounts (which may or may not save you some filthy lucre).
In practice, Amazon Subscribe & Save is a steaming pile of shit.
Leaving aside issues like price fluctuations (most items seem to become magically cheaper just after they've taken payment) and the fact that most orders are split into multiple deliveries, I decided to make a rough & ready chart, plotting items delivered against relative delivery days. They say that a picture's worth a thousand words... most of my thousand are expletives.
Number of items up the side, relative delivery days across the top. If you can't understand that, you should go back to school on Monday.
The chart above includes all ordered S&S items for 2020 and 2021. Ordered items are supposed to be delivered on 4th March, 4th June, 4th September, or 4th December.
Of a total of 68 items ordered, 5 never arrived and only 4 arrived on the agreed selected date. To put it another way, only 5.9% of items were delivered on the agreed selected date, so it's a certainty that someone here needs to be available to receive items for at least six consecutive days every three months.
It's not as if the advisory emails are any use either - yesterday morning I received six emails informing me that all outstanding items would arrive today (Saturday), but those emails were bullshit - all of the outstanding items arrived yesterday (Friday) afternoon. Go figure.
And then there's the packaging... Amazon are trying to do their bit by reusing boxes, but for [insert your preferred deity's name here]'s sake, they could at least try to tape up the sides of the reused boxes. This was today's yesterday's first delivery (three packages):
Yes, this is how it was left on our yard. It's a disgrace.
Like I said, it's a steaming pile of shit.
House of Games
Highbrow
This morning I got the result of yesterday's Covid PCR test which was done because our household had been in prolonged close contact with someone who later tested positive.
My result was negative. Later, the others reported negative results.
Lowbrow
This afternoon I got the result of LRI Hambleton's SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection test (the test that counts my Covid antibody copies which should be created in response to three doses of vaccine). Obviously, the higher the count, the greater the response, and the more robust the resistance.
My count?
Zero. Zilch. Nada. Jack. Sweet fuck all.
We're expecting turbulence so buckle-up, it's likely to get a bit rough.
A quick & dirty gear round-up
There's not much here for the technical-gear addicts, but we did try out a few bits of bargain kit to see how they fared during our week in the LDNP.
Fleece jacket: It's a Quechua Men's Hiking Warm Fleece Jacket SH500 X-Warm from Decathlon. I picked up a petrol blue / carbon grey and a black / carbon grey in the sale early last year. Each has waterproof bits, venting bits, breathable bits, stretchy bits, simple yet effective cuffs, a good pocket arrangement and a good zip-into-collar hood. Bargains at less than £30 a pop, with free Click & Collect at the local Asda thrown in.
Trousers: MOD-issue MTP PCS, I have a selection of sizes (mainly 80-96-112) in either temperate or warm fabrics to suit most conditions. Superb pocket arrangement, lightweight, quick-drying, fairly windproof, and tough as old boots. Prices and availability variable.
Baselayer: Good old Aldi merino long-sleeved tops. Always a bargain. I don't need to spend a fortune on anything more technical.
Headgear: In the fine weather there was no real need for tech-hats, but in order to keep the consultants happy I kept the UV off my sparsely-thatched bonce with super-cheap zandanas from eBay. They take about 20 minutes to wash and air-dry, and keeping a couple of spares in my pocket, along with a few face-coverings for pestilence-defence, is hardly a huge weight-penalty. I now have a fine selection of patterns to suit most occasions.
Footwear: I took the trusty Scarpa SLs but didn't wear them at all, opting for my Trezeta Incas. Had minor issues with them when they were new, the laces were stretching too much, replaced them with proper Scarpa laces and they've been fine ever since. Waterproof, grippy, and comfy. Nice to see that they're still using lasts nearly the same as Scarpa.
Headgear - jacket - trousers - boots - headgear - baselayer - trousers - boots
Pack: I used my trusty LA Alpine Attack 40 so no news there, but Chris was toting her new Forclaz Women’s trekking backpack 50+10L, another nice bit of kit from Decathlon. OK, so 50 litres is over-kill for a day-walk, but I'm not going to argue with her, she knows what she likes and she has to carry it so it's none of my business.
Comms: Not something that I use a lot on the hill, but when my previous handset died I opted for an outdoorsy waterproof replacement. I went for the Ulefone Armor X6 - it's MIL-STD 810G, IP68-rated and covered in all sorts of impact-resistant bits, so dropping it into water or onto rocks isn't too much of a worry. It's still passable as an everyday phone and it is way cheaper than any iThing.
Finally, there's Olga. Not sure if she qualifies as "kit" but she was a lock-down bargain and we wouldn't have enjoyed the holiday as much without her. She's built for comfort and for speed, and she has more in-built tech than I can shake a stick at, but I do wish that I could change the satnav's voice. I also wish that I could turn off the stupid alarm that tells me that the driver's door is open even when I'm sitting in the driver's seat right next to the door that I've left open on purpose.
One unnerving thing about her is that her warranty is longer than mine.
Why "Olga"? Well, here's a clue...
I couldn't bring myself to call it Bolg
A Friday finale
We woke to a glorious morning - clear skies with that late-season feel in the air, and the promise of a day of fine weather.
The garden was a busy place - a couple of pairs of braces of pheasant at last count. Of course, by the time I'd grabbed my camera they'd all buggered off.
Anyway, here's one last pic from the window:
Binsey... again
Packing the car is so much easier now that we use Really Useful Boxes for the majority of our stuff.
Talking of cars, here's the latest addition to our family:
Olga sitting pretty on the driveway at Owl's Roost
Soon we'd finished packing away our gear and were on our way, but I couldn't resist stopping for just one more pic:
Blue skies over Skiddaw and Dodd
And that was that. The end of a fine and much-overdue week away.
We're already planning another 🙂
A Thursday there-and-back-again
We didn't much fancy another full day of walking, as we would need to pack later for our departure early on Friday, so we stayed local and settled for a pleasant lakeside walk - a couple or three miles along Bassenthwaite Lake's western shore. A fair few interesting birds were about but none of them were interested in posing for the camera, so you'll have to make do with pics of less-mobile things:
Binsey again
A late and lonely Leucanthemum vulgare (ox-eye daisy, oxeye daisy, dog daisy, marguerite)
Looking towards Skiddaw
"Imagine that you're walking through a wood..."
A leisurely lunch was had at the much-lauded local - The Pheasant Inn:
Suitably dressed for the occasion
Despite evidence to the contrary, it was still Thursday
After that we toyed with the idea of spending the afternoon at Dubwath Silver Meadows wetland nature reserve but decided to leave that for another holiday. Instead we took a short stroll back to the cottage for a brew and a few hours of packing up ready for Friday.
