to think that the Scottish Highlands are in fact part of the UK mainland?

[Habbibu]

I've just ordered some spare parts for my coffee machine, and, on trying to find out more about shipping, read this: "Please note that as from today 26/01/2010 we now ONLY ship to the UK Mainland.

We no longer ship to southern or northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey,Isle of man, Scottish Highlands and Islands or anywhere outside of mainland UK.

This is due to the fact that shipping to these destinations has proved difficult and time consuming.

Please note that there are NO EXCEPTIONS to the rule, please do not E-mail us asking us about this as these mails will not be replied to."

Leaving aside the rather unfriendly and unhelpful nature of this note, plus the PITA it must be to those on the islands, since when was there a sea to cross to get to (say) Inverness? How is it so more difficult to get just that bit further up the A9? (well, yes, yes, I know, it can be a pain, but you get my point). Thankfully it doesn't affect me (though I have seen the odd place that won't deliver north of Edinburgh), but it's a massive pain for my ILs and others - who manage to get themselves up and down the road quite happily.

Wingandprayer, if retailers voted with their feet and chose couriers who didn't effectively deny them part of their customer base, we'd all be better served.

GentleOtter Those were prices for December last year, all I could find.

What is really bizarre is that where I live is further south than Glasgow yet we are H&I.

Glad you found an alternative OP .

that always bugged me too mulguy. Not island, and hardly high in most places

TapselteerieO - sorry if I sounded abrupt, that was not my intention.

It is strange how the prices rose during the cold spell even although the crude prices fell. It is also nigh on impossible to find the breakdown of actual cost/ tax/ new VAT rate too.
It is like the fuel companies do not want us to know this information yet they take our money.

Curlycasper only one big hill here lol. If you go up there you can see water on both sides!

Yanbu

(Waves to all the fellow Moray folk) Don't even start me on delivery charges from Ikea. But a nice ikea man told me he reckoned they might have an Aberdeen store in the next few years

My absolute favourite experience of this was when we bought our house last year. We live in Inverness. IN Inverness. It's five minutes drive to the town centre and five further minutes to B&Q. We bought all new appliances and a new kitchen from Comet, Currys, Homebase, B&Q etc.

They all took three days extra because we live in a rural area. We could have picked them up from the local stores! They also failed to mention it when we placed the orders and confirmed the deliveries with us, only to later tell us that was the day they were getting delivered to the local couriers.

Still. I grew up in Orkney. Should be grateful anyone will send me anything I suppose. Having said that, my own employer will only deliver stock to us once a month as we're so far away from Glasgow. Goes to Aberdeen twice a week though...

Damn it. Order dispatched, arriving tomorrow. Yes, obv I could send it back, but I will settle for emailing them saying that I won't be buying from them again due to their delivery policies.

And bloody hell, toria. That's ludicrous.

ILs live outside Inverness, butr can't get Tesco deliveries, when some people who live further from the shop can, apparently because their postcode covers a wide area. In an age of GPS, this postcode stuff seems incredibly primitive.

I am not 100% sure but if I remember correctly there were people who lived on the back road North From Inverness to Dingwall couldn't get Tesco to deliver shopping as it was neither Inverness or Dingwall's job to but Dingwall delivered further north than they were away from some of the towns on that road.

Habbibu

Hello!

My mate's daughter lives in Dingwall and they have to drive into the nearest Tesco.

There is a 24 hour Tesco in Dingwall. I lived about 10 miles further North from Dingwall and when they made it a bigger store (it used to be a wee one) and started doing home delivery there was a cut off between Inverness and Dingwall that they didn't deliver to but my friend miles up again got her deliveries from Dingwall but people living closer but backwards towards Inverness couldn't get a delivery from anyone.

I wish we had a Tesco that close.

I know I remember how excited I was when it opened it was a massive thing in the area.

I will when I admit when I moved to Aberdeen 2 years ago I was so excited about living so close to an Asda, up there the nearest one was Elgin and that was still over an hour away.
I am not shamed to admit that I love Asda

We love ASDA, too.

Everytime we go back to Edinburgh to visit DH's family, we all go giddy going to ASDA.

I miss ASDA! Used to live two minutes from the big one at Chesser in Edinburgh and I too go back and visit it whenever I'm down. They're trying to build one in Scorguie but I hear Tesco keep blocking the application. Have seen ASDA delivery vans in my street though so the Elgin one must deliver!

I had an order cancelled once because they don't deliver to the Highlands - I live in Stirling FFS bang slap in the middle of Scotland. I gave them my mums address and they accepted the order - she lives 6 miles away

exp used to go stir crazy when we went to visit my parents in Livingston as I would go to Asda every day while we were there.
When you live somewhere with so few good facilities it is brilliant having so much choice and so much more affordable than what we had locally.

We go to ASDA Newhaven (well, they call it Leith).

My SIL lives walking distance to it and once the kids are in bed, I waltz over and just browse.

We went to one in Perth on our way up north for a self-catering holiday a couple of years back and the wee ones were capering about.

They must have thought we were nutters.

I'm not the only one who gets excited at being in Asda! What a relief .

We have a Tesco but it's small and never changes it's stock which makes meal choices very repetitive.

We love living here but it has it's downsides. I once emailed the head office of Iceland and asked if they would consider opening here. They emailed back to say they had no plans to but did I realise my nearest store was only 20 miles away? This is true but it is one hell of a swim! Or alternatively a 4 hour drive...

We once went to Largs for a day trip (after the wee ones saw one-too-many 'Come to Largs' adverts) and on the way, there was a wee Sainsbo's!

A Sainsbo's!

Of course, we had to stop in.

Largs has a Tesco Metro, too.

Wonders never cease!