6 am Christmas Eve and all the warehouse and delivery team are at our Battersea warehouse, where the vans are being loaded with the last runs before the Christmas break. And they’ve done it!
On Friday things were looking good first thing, with all the runs fully routed. What was not in the plan was that Lazlo’s van would blow its engine twenty minutes out of Welshpool – with a full load still on. A lot of frantic activity followed, but they seem to be back on track – I never quite know how they do it.
This year’s challenges have still not been up to the level of the ‘big freeze’, but floodwaters have made life tricky. One customer asked us two months ago if we could deliver on Saturday the 21st to Swanage, to which the answer was a breezy ‘oh yes’, which completely failed to take account of the flooded streets and the police refusing entry to the town to all but 4x4s. Still after an hour’s wait Pawel was let through, and managed to leave the delivery in what we hope is a secure area. And now we just hope the customer managed to get there himself.
Still this is all in a day’s work for these boys, who have an awesome reputation for getting the job done. One customer wrote to us (back in June, while we were enjoying what passes for an English summer) “I don’t know if he was one of your own, since we didn’t see the van (he was – this was Chris, in fine form), but because of the amount of rainfall recently the roads around where we live are flooded. He parked about half a mile away, carried the two cases through the floods (which must have come up to his knees at the very least), and arrived barefoot and soaking wet. Then he walked back again, which must have something of a relief in comparison since he wasn’t now lugging a dozen bottles…. I reckon to know a little bit about service, and this was up there with the can-do best.”
Thanks again guys, and enjoy your Christmas, you deserve it!