Julie's Boggle

Having carefully ticked the box marked “No substitutes” before checking out at the end of my ASDA online shopping experience, this was what happened at the time of delivery:

Three items were not available.

1. Tin of custard powder

Substituted with: Packet of instant (just add water) custard.

Reaction: Rejected. Ick! Whoever chose this clearly does not make their own custard and does not understand that anyone who actually cares enough to make real custard, does not want to be stuck with the just-add-water variety!

2. Oat and sultana biscuits

Substituted with: Chocolate chip cookies

Reaction: Rejected. Having trawled through their list of 40-something different varieties of biscuits, I had carefully chosen ones that (a) looked healthy and (b) excluded chocolate. (Does that sound tautologous? ) Omitting this substitution would have been a safer bet.

3. 2 x 250g bricks of Willow butter

Substituted with: Nothing. Finding something similar on this one (only 5 other brands of butter to choose from!) apparently had them completely stumped!

Reaction: Huh?!

On the positive side:

• The driver was friendly and prepared to wait while I went through all the bags to check that nothing was damaged.
• Nothing was damaged.
• The driver had all the paperwork with him.
• Delivery was free as part of a special offer.
• I didn’t have to go to the shops and carry it all home.

And the first four are a lot more than could be said for the Tesco lot!

(If you’re wondering, the driver does take all the rejected items away with him and we get a refund.)