The inane ramblings of a leaflet & flyer distributor.
Well what a month it turned out to be!
It’s not great having to deliver leaflets & flyers in the winter months, but at least the last couple of years didn’t require the use of a wetsuit & flippers!
There’s certainly something crazy going on with the weather, not just here in Worthing or indeed across the country, but right across the world.
Two years ago, 2012, we hardly had any rain during the early months, but as soon as hosepipe bans were announced, the rain arrived and continued almost non-stop from mid-spring to the end of summer. The wettest summer in England since records began over 100 years ago, and the second wettest for the whole of the UK – yes, Scotland did fairly well, bringing the UK average rainfall down a little.
Last year, was one of the coldest and indeed longest winters since records began, it extended well into spring, in fact we basically missed out on spring, going straight from winter weather into summer weather. What a great summer it was too, I got a cracking tan whilst delivering in shorts & T-shirt, across the Sunny Worthing area!
Fast-forward to 2014, and we end-up with the wettest January since records began, which makes delivering leaflets & flyers fairly unpleasant, to say the least.
They say there’s no such thing as the wrong weather, just the wrong clothing – I can’t agree with that. It’s easy to wrap-up against the cold, but not so easy when is comes to rain, yes, you put the waterproofs on, from head to toe, but you generate a lot of heat when you are walking at speed to make deliveries, and, well lets just say, the waterproofs aren’t as breathable as one would like.
The other problem is trying to keep the leaflets & flyers dry, it gets to the point where you have to give-up, it’s not fair putting soggy leaflets & flyers though letterboxes – not for the householders and certainly not for the clients.
I always build some flexibility into the delivery schedule to take account for having to workaround the more extreme weather conditions, but that wasn’t enough for this January. I didn’t finish the month’s deliveries until two days into February; still I should be able to make-up those couple of days in February, in theory.
Mike.