We get some post.

We got some post this morning. It wasn't even very good post, but it was post nonetheless. I had always thought that the surefire way to know that there was a postal strike going on would be the fact that you don't get any post. I find the process of getting a letter as mystical as watching a DVD or listening to music - who puts the Spice Girls on that shiny little disc of plastic for my aural delectation, and how do they do it? How does a miasmic sequence of events taking place within the very bowels of my car conspire to move me along the street? I just don't know. Just as I have no earthly idea how someone can stick a bit of paper with my name on it into a box and it gets put through a hole in the house the next morning.

Some of the magic was dented this morning, I must say - I think the postman hit their head on the door.

You see, the front garden currently resembles the final round of the Krypton Factor. There's a pit of mud to negotiate before the stairs with no rail, a quick dance around the smashed up paving slabs and a gravity-cheating, death-defying shimmy along a plank of wood to get to the front door, suspended as it is over a terrifying mix of hardcore and cement. You don't want your shoes to turn into concrete ones.

It was fortuitous that my dad's efforts coincided with the postal strike - I wouldn't wish the assault course to get to the front door on anyone, let alone those hard-working members of Her Majesty's Postal Force who are being cruelly made to work long hours with diminishing pay. If they did make it to the front door I'd probably remind them that they're living through the same recession as everyone else and to grow a pair, but the cowards just stick the letters in and run for it. Something went awry this morning as I heard a distinct thump before the letters came through - I felt a momentary jolt of sympathy course through my body, generally an alien emotion, but it quickly passed - the scab probably deserved it.