I had no problem sending a large old 19thC Portuguese chest packed with stuff from Qatar to Spain about four years ago…
No problem in Doha, I could see everything being packed-up and taken away with efficiency… in Spain they were to go to my house in Extremadura… yes, Extremadura… you know, that autonomous community in SW Spain - so OK, not a lot of people know that.
I was due to be at the house the week it arrived, got a phone call the day before, eagerly waited… no show. Phoned the Spanish freight company: snag with customs it will be with you next week, ‘... yes, but I wont be’, I said.
Now at this point I had no friends and only one or two acquaintances in Spain who might take delivery for me: sad but true Gisele… I’d known this guy for a few years but he wouldn’t take it for me!... ‘drugs, Tim, those kind of things… ‘, he muttered. ‘Roger, I’m not a drugs smuggler’, I said but dropped it… (name changed for privacy, etc., etc..)
Anyhow, I thought well it will be left in a warehouse somewhere between Madrid and Badajoz if they can’t deliver it and I’ll go an collect it - all the 80kgs of wood that looked like pine but weighed the same as ebony.
A month or two later when I returned to Spain to check up on the major building work I expected to see a aviso slip saying ‘... sorry, there was no one in at the time of delivery, your goods have been transported back half way around the world and your unlikely to see them again… ‘. The chest is old and beautiful and only cost half the price of transportation but still it would be a disaster to lose it.
Opened the door: there it was - builder had taken delivery of it… sometimes things just happen. I’m sure your stuff will be fine, don’t worry.
All the best
Tim
