Tuesday, October 5, 2010

I'm back and a couple of things I dislike about living in the country...

First I must say we live in a beautiful part of the country.  I love how the sky in this photo, just goes on and on.  I don't know how to use photo shop, as it would be an even better photo if the hydro lines were not in the photo.  This was taken from the truck.


Now to get on with my whining...LOL

1. The Post Office........

Our mail delivery person is driving me to an early grave.  Not only does she not put the flag up when she has delivered the mail......believe me that's not a difficult thing to remember; deliver mail put the flag up...........I once again put mail in my box to be picked up and mailed only for her not to pick it up?

She has already had a "word with me" regarding me complaining, so I have to say I was reluctant to call again.  However enough is enough.  She is getting paid to deliver the mail.  Since she has taken over, instead of getting the hydro and telephone bills in the space of a couple of days, there is at least a week between the delivery of them both.  I get a newspaper delivered and although it gets picked up from the newspaper office on a Thursday morning, I get it at the earliest on a Monday, but it can take up to Thursday to get it delivered?  Some weeks I don't get it at all, and then the following week, I'll get the two weeks worth of newspaper.

As I write this Monday night I am fed up with Canada Post.  I rang the office Monday afternoon when I discovered she hadn't picked up my mail, and to cut a long story short, I have to call back on Tuesday morning to talk to the supervisor.  As I said to the lady on the phone what good will it do to complain again?  However she said that I am not the only one complaining about the way she delivers the mail.  I will let you know how I get on.

2. Ambulance Service.......

This is a story I meant to tell you about a while ago.  When my brother Pete was here at the end of August, he asked us how long does it take for an ambulance to get to our house.  After much consideration both me and dh figured around 10 minutes, as that is where the closest ambulance station is.  The closest fire station is around the corner, a couple minutes drive at the most, but its a volunteer fire service, so everyone has to be paged.

Later on that night, me, dh and my brother were sitting outside on the back deck, when all of a sudden we looked over to the side road and witnessed a person driving along, and then rolling the car on the corner.  There was a big puff of smoke, so we "ran" or hobbled to the truck as we thought the car was on fire.  It turned out the puff of smoke was from the dust from the gravel road.

Anyhow, a young lady was coming along a newly gravelled road too fast; despite telling everyone she wasn't speeding....okay whatever!!!  Luckily she wasn't hurt, other than a few scratches to her feet.  She had managed to get out of the car and as she was wearing flip flops (a big NO, NO when driving a car) she lost them when getting out of the car.

One of the neighbours close to the crash site was on the phone to the emergency services.  I don't know what she was telling them, but she was on the phone with them for a long while. 

So the answer to my brother's question," How long does it take for an ambulance to arrive at our house, or close by."

20 minutes..........20 sodding minutes, in fact the first ambulance to arrive wasn't even from the closest town, it was from the town 20 minutes away.  Right behind it, was the ambulance from the closest town (a ten minute drive from our house).  Plus two fire trucks with assorted personnel and two police cars.

Now to be fair I don't know what that women told emergency services, but it doesn't bode well knowing that it can take 20 minutes for the ambulance to arrive..............

Now I am not a professional medical person, but the dippy neighbour who was "looking after" the young lady was doing a crap job as she was making such a fuss all it was doing was making the young lady think more about what had happened.

So I went over to talk to her and talked to her about her life and what she did for a living etc.  It took her mind off what had just happened to her and made her a bit more relaxed.  I thought that was a more productive thing to do?  If I am wrong please let me know...........

Had a busy weekend doing yard work and other getting ready for winter jobs.  Back at the dentist today (Tuesday)..........I think I should just move my bed in there it would be easier!!

10 comments:

Stella Jones said...

hmmm, we take a lot for granted overhere, I think! However, we used to always get our post at between 8 a.m. and 8.30 a.m. when I was a child. Then we had another delivery at about 11 a.m. Now, we only get one delivery and that comes at about 10 a.m. which is no good for people who go to work. They have to wait til the evening to get it.
The hospital is not too far away but I wouldn't like to say how long it would take for an ambulance to get here. I would like to think 5/10 minutes.
Blessings, Star

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

I'm glad you're complaining about the mail service Gill--While I know you don't want to cause problems, there are plenty of people who would be willing to do her job, and do it right--I have to add that here in the states, we raise the flag when there's mail to be picked up. If they aren't picking up our mail, you never know if our mailman has come or not.

Interesting about the aumbulance service. You just have to hope that if it was a life or death situation the time would be much less!

MyBulletinBoard said...

I think you're a good neighbor. We live in a town with volunteer everything. I wonder what we'll do when everybody gets too old to help.

Jane and Chris said...

Let's hope we never have to find out how long it would take an ambulance to get here! Yes, I do think you did the right thing by chatting to the girl to keep her calm.
Our mail lady is very good, however, the local Post Office (an outlet in the pharmacy) staff are not. Vandals kept destroying our mailbox, we asked the Post Office to keep our mail for a couple of days (only one car, which hubby used for work meant, we couldn't get to the Post Office until Saturday). They told us that they wouldn't hold it but return it to the Main Sorting Office for them to re send! How does that make any sense? We no longer use our local Post Office but use one 1/2hrs drive away because they are nicer (and seem to know what they are doing).
Jane x

stitchersanon said...

It can be as bad in a city: bad traffic, bad parking, rush hour traffic, no ambulances available: I don't think it is a country thing and if I had to chose between country and city (and I have done both) then country wins every time.
You cannot find perfection anywhere.

Same with snotty postwomen ;-)

Stephanie V said...

You jolly well should complain about that kind of service! And her having a 'word' with you sounds like bullying to me. If there have been other complaints, Canada Post should take it seriously. It is a business, after all.

John Going Gently said...

good post!

gill
could you do me a HUGE favour>?
could you have a look at my sisters blog and comment on her latest entry....
she has designed a blog about my brother and needs a few more "positive comments on it!
thank you somuch
john post below!
http://supportingandrew.blogspot.com/

ps if anyone else reads this please go along too
xxx

DeniseinVA said...

Does this mean your mail lady won't be getting any Christmas cookies ;) All joking aside, very frustrating. We've been lucky so far. Hopefully you will get through. As for the girl in the accident, sounds like you handled that very well.

Rose said...

I think you did the right thing talking to the lady and getting her to relax.

As to the mail, as someone else said...here we raise the flag if we have mail to be picked up. My mother-in-law at one time had a box that had a flag that was put on like a propellor...one end was red. She raised that if she had mail to be picked up.

The other end was yellow, and it was set so that even if she didn't have mail to be picked up, if the postman left mail, the yellow flag went up so she knew she had mail.

I must say I am 54 and always had a pretty good mailperson...always end up being friends. Except for the past year or two, we have a sub that takes the place of our regular mailman when he is on vacation...this sub will not even speak hardly. If we are out when he delivers and we say thank-you, he just stares at us as if we were from outer space or something. If we have mail to be picked up, it is just as apt to be left in the box.

Leiani said...

Oh how frustrating to have a postwoman like that! We recently had a delivery guy just leave a not in our letterbox saying he couldnt deliver a package as we werent home and we would have to drive to the post office to collect it. Except we were home and watched him play his deception. Del rang the post office and complained and they made him come back asap. His excuse was that no one else in our area seemed to be home so he presumed we would be out too! Cheeky and lazy at the same time. LOL

{{{SIGH}}}

Tuesday was a mixed bag type of day. Had the appliance repair guy come again to install another circuit board in the fridge.  When hubby got...