Father's Day

Embee is quietly about to enjoy his Father's Day gift from Beccy who is currently living it up in France on a three week holiday in the Dordogne. What he doesn't realise is the drama that I had making sure his gift arrived in an edible state.
Let me explain:
Beccy was very organised and she sent a card and a little joke book well in advance and I was keeping this until the appointed day. I have mentioned in the past Embee's love of Cornish pasties and Beccy was delighted when she found that she could order some to be sent from Bodmin in Cornwall. The arrangement was that I would be phoned to agree a deliver day and time. This went according to plan and I agreed that the parcel would be delivered before 12md on Thursday last. So far so good. Now I usually go swimming on a Thursday and as I didn't want to miss a session I left my mother waiting to receive the parcel. I returned home before 12 md surprised that it had not arrived, what I forgot to do was check my telephone messages until an hour later. When I did there was a message from the delivery company TNT asking me to ring as they could not find our address (my mother had heard the phone but she doesn't answer ours). I rang to try and sort it out they tried to tell me they weren't given the correct address and post code and said they probably couldn't manage to get it delivered today. I pointed out this was a food delivery but they said I should get back to the supplier to sort it out- what a surprise!!
What they didn't realise was that they had left the phone line open and I had a recorded conversation the telephone operator had with the delivery driver, plus the message they left me clearly showed they did have the correct address but it had been incorrectly picked up by putting "north' not on the end of the road but on the beginning of the area where we live (sorry if this doesn't make sense).
My next step was to phone the supplier and explain, she said the pasties would be ruined if they did not arrive today and leave it to her. Well to cut a long story short and after numerous telephone calls the pasties arrived just after 2:15pm. I eagerly opened the parcel to find that because of the time delay the pasties, that are sent frozen, were practically all thawed and most looked a mess. The pastry was sticky and the content of some was spilling out, and they were stuck together. I carefully separated them to take photos (actually this slightly improved the look but not a lot as you can see)!!
I knew if I cooked them immediately they could be salvaged but this was not the object of the excercise as it was supposed to be a surprise Father's Day present. I had planned to take Embee to the freezer on the day to give him his present. More phone calls to the supplier resulted in another batch being dispatched for the following day. These arrived at 10am but even so the pastry was thawed on a few, despite the extra ice pack. However the fillings were still frozen so I immediately deposited them in the freezer, oh, and there were a couple of extra ones, which was a thoughtful gesture. I have to say the supplier took full responsibility and this was refreshing as one often has to battle for customer services. I decided not to name the company because I didn't really want to give them any bad publicity.
Are you wondering what I did with the first batch of pasties? I hate to waste food so I cooked them and presented Embee with one for his tea and of course once cooked I could refreeze. So in the end we did rather well out of it.... the moral I think is not to order in the summer when the weather conditions make if difficult to send frozen food.

Embee has already been chuckling away as he reads 'Dublin Wit' so I expect I will find a lot of material for my Witty Wednesdays from this book!!


I hope fathers everywhere have a very Happy Day- you can always do the washing up tomorrow!!!