On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:27:39 +0000, mogga wrote:

Ask neighbours to keep an eye out. Ours are pretty good at catching
the vans before they disappear and we do the same for other neighbours
too.

Neighbours? Can't see any of our neighbours... It's quite funny when
we are expecting something and it is being delivered by a courier who
doesn't know the area. Two things happen we see a delivery van go
flying past then screech to a halt and reverse back up the hill or
come back up slowly 5 minutes latter having been down to the village
and asked in the Post Office... Many of the common couriers, UPS,
DHL, etc have the same driver on the route so they know where all the
odd farms and places are. Others drop all the local stuff at one of
the towns garages and then a local delivers it. Some is even picked
up from the couriers depot and brought in by the returning minibus
that took kids to school.

The depots to pick parcels up at are miles away so it's in everyone's
interest not to have to trek out.

Wouldn't even contemplate going to get something, 50 mile round trip
stuff that, they can redeliver on a given date. I suspect many of the
drivers don't want to spend the hour coming back out again to
redeliver either so stuff gets left in the shed or round the back and
a card dropped through the door. Pity that some drivers hand writing
makes Gordon Brown's look like block capitals...

--
Cheers
Dave.