I bought a few things last week. 1 was from Preston and posted for 48 hour delivery but took 9 days. The other was from China and it was flown in and delivered by Royal Mail quicker than the 48 system as it took 8 days total time.
Royal mail can be strange as sometimes its next day delivery and others can take over a week. The Preston parcel sat in the parcel shop for 6 days according to the tracking.
Purchases from China are getting here in under 10 days now so improving as our system is breaking down.
Letters here seem to all arrive tied together with an elastic band so i get 6 packages one day then none until the next week.
I suppose at least not much is getting lost in recent years considering the quantities they move