The pandemic taught us many things, some good, some bad, and apart from the possible terrible damage to our health, it has done some bad things to our credit cards.

We learned, first by necessity and then by total impulse, to buy things online.

We began timidly.

Flushed by early success and the ease of Paypal to use, we got bolder, and with time on our hands we saw things we liked…

Facebook of course watched, and if we investigated something, they tempted us with even more delights and we were hooked.

Hey!! Fran liked those striped shirts… show her 20 more! Damn you FB…

Parcels began arriving, it was so exciting!

We got to be on a first name basis with the delivery man, and (come on now be honest) we all stood in front of the parcel reading the label before opening it, as we tried to remember what it was that we ordered.

I have to be truthful – I have bought everything from books, garden plants, (especially garden plants) clothing (disaster) face creams (usually great) and electric shavers (for him not me).

While we all grew adept at the procedure, and became complacent, there are lessons to be learned along the way.

Particularly about clothing – it seems that women on other countries have very skinny arms… Or I have large country woman working ones… St Vincent De Paul’s local recycle shop has on current display some absolutely brand new, never been worn shirts and two dresses, that MAY fit some skinny wench, but when I tried them on, there was a struggle resembling a tarantella to try and struggle back out of the strait jackets….

I learned too when buying ornaments and things for garden, sellers can be loose with the truth.  My purchase of a very cute garden elf peeping round a tree appeared to be about a foot long… oh, thinks I – how CUTE! I will buy it… I have just the place.

Does anyone want an earring size plaster dwarf?

I tried to fight back… the ad was still running on FB so I messaged. OI!!! you didn’t tell me how SMALL this is… the message was deleted, so I did it again, deleted.. again… and they blocked me…

I now make sure I ask, and get mightily suspicious if there’s no reply. You won’t tell me – I’m not buying. I also read the reviews on everything.

Eleanor from Alaska found the sizes of the dresses were not the same as stated (tell me about it Eleanor). Suzanne from France said Emuaid got rid of the spots on her hands. Alice from the Outback told me that her parcel had arrived in very good time.

All very useful.  I am getting to be a dab hand at this.

But despite the problems, and the lessons hard learned, Online shopping seems to be here to stay.

Let’s face it, we are a lazy lot, and the temptation is placed there in front of us… Now, where did I put my credit card.