About 1230, a knock at the door and a deliveoo driver (or whatever) thrust two bags of McDonalds Takeaway into my hand.
“OK, Thanks”, I said, and took them in, and he drove off.

Now, I knew I hadn’t ordered McDonalds (why would I – I don’t even go there when it is open for walk-in customers) but assumed Middle Child had as it’s something he often does. So, I give him a shout.

Then I looked at the bags. There was a lot of food. OK, not a mountain, but a lot more than a one-person late breakfast. Two burgers, some weirdly shaped things that might have been chicken once upon a time, several portions of chips fries, and four drinks. OK, two drinks and two shakes. Probably some other bits and pieces as well. Two of the orders were “Happy Meals” [sic]. Seemed a bit odd.

Still no sign of life from Middle Child so I go and bang on his bedroom door. He is fast asleep. There’s no way he could have ordered the food.

Conclusion – delivery driver had got the wrong address. What to do? Technically, eating food that you know is not yours is probably theft. I phone the “restaurant” [sic]. “Oh well, COVID-19 restrictions mean we can’t come and collect it, so tuck into a free meal”. So, we did. And tried not to think too much of the frustrated parent who had told her children “yes, if you sit down quetly and get on with your online lesson for the next 30 minutes I will order a McDonalds for lunch”.
My dislike of McDonald’s was just about tempered by my dislike of seeing food go to waste. But it didn’t whet my appetite to get a McBurger anytime soon.
And why are they still putting plastic toys in the “Happy Meals” [sic]. There was a TV programme about waste last year and the boss of McDonalds UK categorically stated that they would remove plastic toys. They even came to my town to film the piece. Why my town? Well, maybe because there is no BurgerKing, so there is no chance of accidentally getting a BK logo in the background of the street shots.

In other news, we have returned Youngest Child to university. After much discussion over whether the journey counted as “essential” and whether “should stay at home” meant “must stay at home” (YC wanted to stay put; we wanted to take her back*) we agreed to return her yesterday – a straight there-and-back journey again.

Traffic was quiet so we made good progress. Motorway service areas were empty. When we stopped on the way up, we saw maybe five other groups in the building (like us, most people grabbed refreshments and returned to the car to eat them). So amazing coincidence that one of these five groups was one of Mrs B’s colleagues – who was also taking a child back to university (though their journey was to the proper north, as opposed to what I annoy Mrs B and YC by calling the “North Midlands”).