Post, St George and sandcastles

Post, St George and sandcastles

The workings of the postal system have, for you regular readers, become a source of frustration, anger and bewilderment for me of late.  However, the inefficiency now extends to the international postal system.  You may remember that on 29^th November 2010 I posted three parcels at the same time to the same address in China.  Two arrived together but the third did not.  This parcel stayed missing for nearly five months until last week when it was returned to me!!  Curiously it was marked up ‘unclaimed’ which considering no attempt was ever made to deliver it to the recipient was strange.  The parcel has now been repacked and forwarded to Spain for collection later this year when my friend visits her family (at a much cheaper price too I might add!)

My cold has just about cleared up after nearly seven weeks, however the cough still lingers.  I even resorted to a GP appointment for reassurance that I do not have bronchitis (after much nagging by my mother on the subject).  However, I continue to cough day and night, varying between a dry cough and a chesty cough depending on what medicine I take – instead of curing the cough, the tickly medicine causes a tickly cough and the chesty medicine aggravates the productive cough.  Whichever variety of cough I have, it changes every hours and I can feel popping bubbles when I splutter.  I was described the other day as sounding like an old kettle when I breathed too deeply. A little unkind, but I guess being described as an old boiler would have been worse.

If you fancy a patriotic day out next St George’s Day head for Nottingham.  The castle featured the right flag for the day and hosted some medieval events.  Later on, two chaps kitted out in Crusader outfits trotted through town on horseback, accompanied by the band of the Scots Guards (yes, I thought that was a little bizarre), marching bands and majorettes.  The town hall was dressed in an enormous St George’s flag and there were many patriotic souls (dressed in England football shirts) frequenting the local hostelries.  I expect they were drinking German beer, but hey, what the heck!

Disturbingly, I heard today that someone had gone to more than one branch of W H Smiths to purchase St George’s Day cards only to be told they did not sell them as the flag is the symbol of the BNP.  Oh for go0dness sake, whatever next?

Royal wedding fever approaches and I am banking on everyone being indoors as I will be heading down to the coast for two days.  No way am I going to be anywhere near the capital amongst all that madness with the risk of terrorist attacks, big crowds and overpriced food stalls.  By the end of Friday there will be litter knee deep and roads still closed.  No room at the inn for anyone unfortunate to arrive in London on Thursday or Friday without a prior booking.  Much like Christmas really but without the snow and Santa.  My bucket and spade will be packed together with flips flops and knotted hanky all ready to hit the sands.

Happy flag waving.