Friday morning dawned bright and sunny, much as Thursday had done. Sadly this time my mood didn’t match and I had an uneasy feeling of foreboding.

I just knew things were going to go pear shaped. By 3pm there had been no pick-up and so I rang them at the call centre again.

I have to say that by this stage I was really annoyed and finding myself third in the queue again, with the same piped music, did nothing to lighten my mood. The young lady was polite and helpful but I’m sure she could tell from my tone I was less than happy.

Having put me on hold (more piped music) whilst she rang Lincoln I could feel myself getting more and more angry.

When she came back she said that the pick-up wouldn’t be made today because the paperwork hadn’t gone through in time. “RUBBISH”, I shouted down the phone, “give me the phone number of Lincoln and let me speak to them myself.”

It seems that company policy prevented her from doing this, so I asked to speak to a supervisor.

He was most apologetic, accepted it was their fault, but wouldn’t give me the phone number either. He did however promise the pick-up would be made on Monday. I pointed out that this would be the third day I had been waiting for them, so he promised they would ‘phone me on Monday morning with an estimated time for collection.

I rang Mary. She was out, so I left a message on her machine saying we needed to talk and I would ring her later. I then went upstairs to run a bath. I was just about to put my toe in the water when she called back. Let’s just say I’m glad it wasn’t a video phone!

Again she was most understanding. We agreed we would give CityLink one final chance, but if they failed to turn up on Monday we would cancel them and move to PlanB. She wished me a pleasant weekend.

Saturday was OK but as Sunday progressed I could feel myself getting anxious about Monday. Peter, trying to help, went on the website and input the tracking number. It told him the order was CANCELLED.

The footstools were indeed extracting every last ounce of their pound of flesh.

Well, you can imagine what a night we had. At 8.05 Monday morning I was on the phone to CityLink. I was first in the queue, but it still took ages to speak to a human being. I asked to speak to a supervisor, to cut a long story short, I was promised a supervisor would ring me in the next couple of hours.

He rang at 9.40am saying the pick-up would be made between 3pm and 4pm. I rang Mary and left a message giving her the good news.

The pick-up actually took place at 1.45pm. What’s the point of giving a time that is so inaccurate? It’s almost worse than no time at all. It’s a good job we hadn’t gone out, I shudder to think what would have happened then!!

Today, at around noon, Mary rang to say the footstools had been safely delivered and she was very pleased with them. Phew, what a relief.

I should say at this point I know that in the grand scheme of worldly disasters this is barely a pin prick. Nevertheless, sometimes things just get under your skin, and these footstools have been two of them.