Apparently about 75% of New Zealand’s businesses are now open. The news reported there were long queues at fast food drive throughs and coffee takeaway places. At the same time, a lot more businesses can now accept online orders, as long as they’re delivered to the customer, one way or another, contactlessly. Sometimes that means delivery, other times it means picking-up the order.
Today I took advantage of our new Lockdown Lite by taking advantage of both opportunities. I posted this to my personal Facebook:
OMG! I just successfully placed an online order for delivery from Countdown! It'll be delivered during the first available time slot, which is between 6pm and 8pm tomorrow. The delivery fee was only $9, mainly because I may have ordered a little bit more than I'd have bought if I went to the supermarket in person, but that was because it's the first time in some five weeks there's been an open delivery slot, and I *may* have gotten a bit excited. About online ordering. Groceries, no less (yeah, I know…). On the other hand, after five weeks most of my supplies *are* running low, so that's the story I'm sticking with.
I also placed my first ever "click and collect" order from the hardware warehouse store so I can get the bits and pieces I need to finish my "lockdown projects" around the house (including the ones I didn't get a chance to get my supplies for). The rocks I wanted can't be delivered (dunno why not—weight?), and, of course, that's what I most needed. It seemed silly to have the other things delivered (3 to 5 days from now) when I can go get everything tomorrow morning and have no delivery fees (which I technically gave to Countdown, I suppose).
The pick up tomorrow is supposed to be "contactless", but still, I'll be around people. By having the supermarket deliver I can at least avoid being around any more people than absolutely necessary. I'm sure Dr. Bloomfield and the prime minister would approve. Besides, when I go to pick up the stuff tomorrow morning, it'll be the first time in 4 and a half weeks that I've left my property—don't want to overdo it! 😆
It probably goes to show how bloody tedious this lockdown has been that online shopping is so exciting!🤣I’ll know tomorrow how well those options worked, but it’s also made me more determined to find more New Zealand businesses, especially small businesses, to order from. It will be at least two more weeks before retail shops re-open, and after more than six weeks away from them, who could possibly feel relaxed about going back? I have a feeling many of us will be ordering a lot of stuff for awhile yet.
The only different thing I noticed was noise, including the lack of it. I thought that the builders would start work on all the houses under construction near me, but as near as I could tell, only one of them had workers, and that’s a house that’s probably closest to being done (and it’s the only one that borders my property). However, builders were driving up our street at much faster speeds than they should have, not just in general, but also considering that pedestrians—children and adults alike—have had the streets pretty much all to themselves for more than a month. The police asked people to drive slowly today, but I guess some tradespeople didn’t get the memo.
I’m betting that the builders could be back at work tomorrow. I’ll also find out how well the delivery and “click and collect” options work. After 33 days under lockdown, it’s nice to have something else to experience than these same walls and not much else.
One step—or Alert Level—at a time.
That padlock in the photo above made its first appearance when the Lockdown began.
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