Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing all our friends across the pond a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Ronnie
xx 

I'm blaming Donald

Even if he isn't actually to blame. And I don't know the name of whoever heads up the US mail system anyway, so Donald will do.   

I'm ranting about the terrible increase in UK-US postal charges which have been imposed by Royal Mail since the beginning of this month. About 60% has been added, that's pretty steep and will obviously impact users both sides of the pond. Royal Mail say they have had to impose the increases and that they are not making a penny of extra profit from them.

Apparently it's partly down to the shortage of transatlantic passenger flights (which used to carry a lot of letters and light mail) since covid came about so paying higher charges for freight flights but mostly it's because of the US mail service changing its terms of business and charging a much higher price for the 'last mile' part of the delivery, which is the most expensive part for all mail service providers. I understand increases are affecting charges in the opposite direction too so US to UK is now more costly.

I send stuff to the US quite often, I don't make any profit on postage and never have, but I can't absorb this ridiculous increase although I have done so far. I checked out alternative carriers to try and cut costs but there aren't any good options. Royal Mail do a super economy 'service', which is admittedly cheap, but it takes up to 42 days to arrive and I don't think that's acceptable to people who have 'matters to attend to', although I might offer it as an option.  

All I need now is for the brexit nonsense to cause increases in charges to the EU at the end of the year! I'm not saying that will happen but who knows.

I was moaning to P about it, he just said I should put up prices and that was that. When I brought it up again later in the day and asked his advice on incentivising somehow to ameliorate the possible decrease in sales, he just said run the increases for a few months first and see what happens, no point looking for solutions until there's data to go on. I could see it was subject closed as far as he was concerned so I suppose I'll make the necessary price adjustments and wait and see.

Rant over:)
Stay safe. Have a good week.

Ronnie
xx

Lionesses downn for now

So no open-top bus tour for our girls. "They have captured the hearts of the nation and made history with television viewing figures, but their coach has said there will be no heroes’ welcome home because his players do not deserve one," according to Sunday's Times.  (you wont be able to read whole article as you would need to register)

Phil Neville looked absolutely furious in this photo of him screaming at them from the sideline. I personally watched both games, the one against the US (congratulations to the girls for winning the World Cup) and the one against Sweden and enjoyed them too and I accept we need to play harder and better but hey, women's football is still at a nascent stage and at least it got great media coverage and hopefully there will be more entrants to the game and continued national interest.

My husband, predictably, after reading the article, opined to me that perhaps if Neville put some of that furious energy into spanking the girls' bottoms when they under perform in training or matches, they might up their act. He said they needed something to put fire into them. I told him he was getting confused between bottoms and bellies, the expression is fire in their bellies. He just said start with the bottoms.

"I think there might be a mass walkout," I said.

"Well there certainly wouldn't be a mass sit-in, not if he did the job properly," he laughed at his little joke. "and who knows, the new policy might attract new talent."

I told him I thought it might attract a queue of applicants for the coach position and assistant coaches. Not to mention a few lawsuits:) 

Please stop by Wednesday to read my answers to PK's meme.

Have a good week.

Ronnie
xx