Surprise delivery

Kate: As part of our kitchen refurb we order a fridge-freezer and dishwasher via the Currys website and are informed by email that it will be delivered direct from the manufacturers, last Wednesday. We sort of ignore this because we know from experience that Thursday is Currys' delivery day here but then after Thursday has come and almost gone we decide to give them a call.
‘Ah,’ they said, ‘there has been a “weird glitch” [my words] and the order has not got through to the manufacturers. But don’t worry, we have the items in stock now’.

Anyhow we settle down to enjoy Friday, knowing that the delivery surely wouldn’t come on Friday and we didn’t feel like irritating the elderly grump genes by calling them again to ask when it would arrive.

Sunday arrives, the rain is lashing down again outside, and Malcolm has just about demolished the old kitchen and is studiously filling and sanding down holes in walls, a by-product of the demolition, whilst trying to leave in place the cooker and the sink so that we can continue to live reasonably normal lives. I am upstairs doing some ironing when I hear a bark as our son Mike and his lady, Eleanor, come in the back door with their dog, Ebony. Almost simultaneously there are two men ringing the front door bell, neither of whom will see the age of 50 again, with a white van marked “Hebridean Haulage”. They are here to deliver our new kitchen appliances and to take away the old units so we frantically shovel fridge and freezer contents onto any surface available whilst apologising to the men that we have had no notice of the delivery date and had almost lost faith in mankind, especially the online kind.

The men are very good and stagger in with the new equipment in the foulest of weather conditions then take away the old fridge and freezer, all without a cup of tea or anything else to sustain them, before driving themselves back to Glasgow. The shock of all this excitement happening at once is almost too much so we all sit down for a cup of tea and abandon the kitchen works for the day.

Malcolm: We are dog-free once more and have a new fridge-freezer and dishwasher, although these are not yet installed in the kitchen, the guts of which will arrive later this week. We know this because it was not ordered online. The installation job is down to me, something I have done before in no less than five previous houses, and although the timetable for arrival of some of the parts still needs some filling in, by the end of this week we should have some of the new kitchen units hanging from our walls, perhaps even a new sink. What is also certain is that by this point it will still have little resemblance to the computer-generated view provided by the suppliers. I work at my own speed.