Out for delivery

[Old Grumpy]

We have compost heaps too, but the bins are useful for woody stems an the copious amounts of grass clippings generated.


OG

[cloughie]

Lucky you get garden waste collections. Now that we have translated to rural outposts there aren't any, nor any glass bottle collections. Maybe time to start a compost heap.

That's one reason why we have a robot lawn mower, which I have now tested, but not fully deployed yet this year.

Why does the robot dispose of the cuttings?

[Dave2002]

Why does the robot dispose of the cuttings?

I don't know "why" it does. It just leaves very small amounts back on the ground to turn to compost.

Comma missing? Sounds like a joke - "why did the robot mower cross the road?".

[oddoneout]

I don't know "why" it does. It just leaves very small amounts back on the ground to turn to compost.

Comma missing? Sounds like a joke - "why did the robot mower cross the road?".

It would have to be a mulching mower as collecting the clippings wouldn't be feasible. Presumably cutting little and often helps to avoid the build up of thatch which was a problem with early mulching mowers.

There seem to be far fewer delivery vehicles of any kind going up and down my road now. I'd thought there might be fewer supermarket vans as most of them here were for people at work who now seem to be going for the DIY approach, but I have been surprised at the very noticeable reduction in courier type traffic. It's a blessing in a couple of respects. The narrowness of the road means it is blocked during the offload, and sometimes more than one van would be trying to deliver at once so delays could be quite tiresome. Also the road is unmade and most of the houses have no drives so white van man batting up at speed, with tyres throwing gravel around, is a bit of a worry even for those of us who aren't precious about our vehicles - my next door neighbour had one of his side windows put out last year, and across the road the glass(not the whole unit so not direct vehicle contact) in a wing mirror was smashed.

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't know "why" it does. It just leaves very small amounts back on the ground to turn to compost.

Comma missing? Sounds like a joke - "why did the robot mower cross the road?".

Because it wanted to cut to The Chase?

(For that to work there has to be a street nearby named The Chase).

[Old Grumpy]

Because it wanted to cut to The Chase?

(For that to work there has to be a street nearby named The Chase).

Oi, don't send it to The Chase, that's my manor - I don't want any of that filthy mulch on my pristine lawns, thank you very much!

OG

[ardcarp]

For that to work there has to be a street nearby named The Chase

No, your joke's OK without a street name. A Chase was an area of forest with expansive grassy clearings for a hunt, often a royal hunt. Cannock Chase (somewhere in the Midlands?) is a good example.

On the subject of mowers, it isn't only robos that don't pick up the grass. Flymos, which have been around for decades, don't. They can't really because they have to blow out air to form the 'cushion' on which they hover. But they do spread it around quite evenly.

We have a normal rotary petrol mower (with a power drive so you don't have to push) which can either pick up the grass in a large bag or just shoot it out of the back. I only use the bag on the (rather few) posher bits of our grass. On the (rather many) rougher areas the deposited grass tends to lie in ridges...a bit like hay-making. It is noticeable however that years of 'green mulch' have encouraged much richer and healthier growth than on the posher bits.

Are we off topic?

[cloughie]

Because it wanted to cut to The Chase?

(For that to work there has to be a street nearby named The Chase).

That’s Pointless!

[LMcD]

Our new super sized amalgamated practice has spent many months waging a campaign against people using Pharmacy2U , on the basis that it will damage their own pharmacy service . The fact that there has been a four day wait to get prescriptions from the in- surgery pharmacy for at least a year, and that they have now closed our village branch of the surgery on extremely spurious grounds(people not social distancing) , are something we are apparently supposed to put up with.It’s quite a big village, and no shortage of folks for the doctors to see.
Not impressed at all.

I'm not sure whether the pharmacy (sold off to Day Lewis) housed in our medical centre operates a local or centralized 'just in time' ordering procedure, but we became used to returning home with a little note advising us that they had run out of a certain item and we would have to call back in a couple of days. This was irritating enough before the present crisis, as the only other option at that time was to use another pharmacy some distance away. My better half nevertheless stuck with them, while I chose to go online. The first delivery from Day Lewis under the scheme just introduced by the surgery was missing one item. Not impressed at all (to coin a phrase).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That’s Pointless!

[BBMmk2]

We getting free grocery deliveries, once a week, plus MrsBBM is looking at other sites for food.

[Dave2002]

I have an order for some building materials from Wickes to use in the garden - scheduled to come in a few weeks. I thought I'd go back to the web site to see if I could add anything to the order, or just start a new one. Now they've shut all the stores, and there's a queuing system in place even to get on to the site.

I started at 13 minutes - now down to 12 minutes. Is this the future of online shopping?

PS: Looks like the item(s) I wanted are now only click and collect, so really no good at the present time. Pity.

[ardcarp]

OTOH many small local shops, butchers, pubs and the like have quickly organised home delivery in our rural area. Doesn't help with hardware, gardening and building materials though. Quite surprised, however, that it's still possible to order loads of things online (e.g. from Amazon, eBay and the like) which come via a man in a van just as they always did. Thank heaven. Nearly had printer ink cartridge crisis.

[Dave2002]

We had to go out a couple of hours ago - a chance to make sure that the car was still working, and recharge its battery. We were expecting a grocery delivery, but the van broke down. In the end we had to drive and make a rendezvous with it, and have the delivery man put the bags in the back of our car. Hopefully we won't have been exposed for too long.

We are now about to go out on another foraging expedition, as a local deli has made up a box of things which weren't delivered in the first tranche.

[oddoneout]

OTOH many small local shops, butchers, pubs and the like have quickly organised home delivery in our rural area. Doesn't help with hardware, gardening and building materials though. Quite surprised, however, that it's still possible to order loads of things online (e.g. from Amazon, eBay and the like) which come via a man in a van just as they always did. Thank heaven. Nearly had printer ink cartridge crisis.

The local family-run nursery I get much of my gardening stuff from has just posted that they've had to stop doing deliveries as the demand was too great for the staff they had available to deal with. They also run glasshouses producing tomatoes and other veg so that has had to take priority I imagine. A recently established dairy based farmshop business a few miles away got in some pallets of compost in response to customer requests and cleared most of one on the first day.