Forty days after Christmas I popped into the local Post Office to locate a missing Christmas parcel my daughter, Sam and her husband, Bob, sent us from England.
There was a short queue and after a few seconds it was my turn.
I asked the clerk, whom I know well, if it would be possible to ascertain whether my missing parcel was one of the myriad of miserable missing missives, meant for members of our town, that were still silently sleeping on their shelves.
I was given the task of leafing through a massive carbonised receipt book, in search of my missing slip for our package. Obviously it had never been placed in our post box.
Starting at February 3, and working backwards, it was just a few minutes before my eyes fell upon “Chris Colvered” (sic) in the bottom right-hand corner of a page. The date stamp indicated that it had been in since at least January 11.
Excitedly I gave the very helpful clerk the reference number. Within a couple of minutes she returned with the parcel. I was asked to sign the slip, and pay R24, to which I retorted that as I had just done some of the Post Office’s work, perhaps they should pay me. We both laughed at this ridiculous suggestion.
The parcel was handed over and our Christmas gift had reached its destination at Wayfarers.
A Wayfarer is someone who travels on foot, and had our parcel been entrusted to such a soul in England, it may well have arrived in Sabie somewhat sooner than it did.
