Does anyone know how one is supposed to feed oneself during quarantine, given there seem to be no online supermarket deliveries for non-vulnerable people? Do I have to look forward to 2 weeks of takeaway meals? Not that I disagree with quarantine, as I've said before I intended to do it regardless of the government's position, I'm just getting a bit nervous about the practicalities as the time approaches.
Fortunately I've got about 4 weeks supply of calories in stock, so I should be ok. The biggest challenge will be where to get new clothes from, as I use up the excess stock.
If you get Amazon Prime (you may be offered a free trial, otherwise it is £7.99 a month and obviously comes with all other benefits such as free Amazon delivery, Amazon video, Amazon music etc.) then you can use Prime Now. It is linked with Morrisons so it sells pretty much all their stuff. You have to order a minimum of £40 for free delivery or a minimum of £15 with a delivery fee (think it's £3.99 but may be £4.99). You can get delivery extremely easily, sometimes with first time of clicking checkout, sometimes you need to refresh up to 10 times but I can guarantee within a few minutes of clicking you will be able to get it. Delivery is pretty much always same day but sometimes next day if you are trying late on and it comes within a 2 hour window (but you can track the driver during that time). Actually, having said all that, it may depend on how many drivers are available and it may be that I have an easier time of it living in Leeds. I can't check that though obviously as this is where I live.
Great info - thanks @JamDrop. That's taken a lot of pressure off. Normally a couple of weeks of isolation wouldn't pose any problems but of course having been away for some time the cupboards are going to be bare and it seems to be defeating the object rather to go and do a big supermarket shop on my way north when I get back to Blighty. I've actually been saving my offer of a free trial to Amazon Prime until I've got time and bandwidth to kill to watch some stuff online so that'll kill two birds with one stone.
Excellent! I used it first with a free trial but it took such a stress away that we've now paid for another month to keep the service (we don't actually use it for any of the other stuff). I'd feel guilty taking a delivery slot from any of the supermarkets as they are so hard to get but these are so easy that it's clearly not a problem for them to fulfill them. If it starts getting harder then I'll leave it to the more vulnerable but it seems to be much easier now than it was a few weeks ago when I had to refresh a few times and only got one slot given - I normally now get a choice of 2 or 3 on my first click.
I'll be quarantining in Rushden so not quite as populous as Leeds but a lot more so than Burgundy. As long as I can get a delivery in the first few days and then maybe some more stuff over the middle weekend I'll be happy.
Not sure it it’s still the case now but I know Iceland were doing free delivery on all orders over £25 a few weeks ago. Do you not have any friends/family you can call upon to go for you? Where do you live?
Rushden (remember them?). No family nearby and nobody I'd want to ask to do my shopping for me. I moved house 18 months ago and I've mainly been in Scotland and France since then, plus my neighbours have already helped me out enough by looking after the place while I've been away for an unexpectedly extended period under lockdown. Amazon Prime looks to be the answer though. Thanks for the Iceland tip but I've got freezer stuff in so I should be ok there, it was fresh produce I was worried about.
Is that really happening pal. I thought they were still delivering to anyone. When I was looking for products online to see if they stocked certain items in store. It was nigh on impossible as I was always put in a queue for home delivery. ( not used the service by the way so don’t know if there’s a criteria to meet once you get to the front of the queue.) Pretty sure I’ve heard of non vulnerable still getting deliveries. Supermarkets have hired loads of temporary drivers. Ps as a non vulnerable dare I ask why you don’t go shopping yourself. Is it fear. ? If so would your neighbours help you out. Or have I misinterpreted the situation.
Maybe I've misinterpreted the situation myself but I'd heard from people in the UK that it was very difficult to get a delivery slot if you weren't a vulnerable person, as you yourself observe. I went to log onto Ocado (my usual online delivery service) to check the situation and was taken to a standard message stating that "If you have priority access to ocado.com, please log in. If you are returned to this page, you do not have priority access." It's not fear, mate, it's the law. When I return to the UK I'm going to be subject to the new quarantine regulations (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52774854). Although as seems usual for this government they're a bit wishy-washy ("They will be told ... not to go out to buy food or other essentials 'where they can rely on others'.") the intention is clear. It wouldn't be much of a quarantine if I could just nip down the shops whenever I felt like it. As for the neighbours, as I explained in my response to @wilko88 above I barely know them and they've already had to look after my house for me so I really don't want to have to ask them to do my shopping too. I'm happy enough that I'll be OK thanks to @JamDrop's suggestion, I just partly wanted to highlight that it's all well and good passing quarantine legislation but there really needs to be some mechanism in place for isolated people returning to the UK under quarantine, perhaps after lengthy absences, to have access to essentials otherwise they're just going to go to the shops and then the whole thing degenerates into a (not very successful) PR exercise.
Ive got prime and didn't know that - however I can only find a very limited number of morrisons items. Is there a specific place to go within amazon Web page /app? And is this via Amazon Pantry or just regular Prime?
Never shopped at Ocado so cant comment on that, we have a delivery every week from Asda done online, it can be hard to get a slot because of demand, but the Wife has figured out when they open the slots, goes in and books a slot then.
Neither, the Amazon website is absolutely stupidly laid out! Google Prime Now or go to https://primenow.amazon.co.uk/ It’s the majority of Morrisons stock (stuff like flour and pasta goes out of stock later in the day though). The daft thing is, and I don’t know why they do this, is that some stuff is down as sold by ‘Amazon’ and some is sold by ‘Morrisons’ and some are sold by both so you can choose and they add to two different baskets that need the minimum spend each. You can either only buy from the Morrisons selection or only from Amazon but as we’ve wanted stuff that are only sold by one or the other we‘ve been having to make both baskets make £40. As we’d never spend £80, even every fortnight we’ve been adding bits of stuff like detergent and shower gel etc. that keeps. If you’re not picky though you could easily stick to just one store, especially as the two baskets have separate delivery (although it’s so easy to get that’s not really a problem and it’s not like we won’t be in). Everything is delivered in paper bags and separated by cupboard, chilled, frozen etc. Frozen comes in a chilled bag which the driver keeps. P.S Amazon Pantry, in my opinion, is the stupidest waste of space in the world. It hardly has anything and charges delivery.
You could check with your local council or church. Where I am the local council has volunteers who will collect essential shopping medicines etc. Also my local parish Church does the same thing and has a helpline and email and team of volunteers Be worth you checking both council and Church out where you are. going.
That's bonkers. I didn't even know there was an app for prime now. I just thought it was all on amazon's usual one. Thanks though, really useful as I use amazon to order stuff for my parents, will save me shopping to local co-op which is pretty crap.
No worries, I didn’t know either until someone told me. Their website really is awfully laid out but I guess they make so much money it doesn’t matter.