The Post Office

Sing Gloria Hosannas to the Royal Mail! They can get a letter from Central London to Orkney in 24 hours. For instance. It's difficult to believe that they are running at a loss though, when I see the number of people standing in the queue to send off internet orders. Of course they have to defray the expense incurred getting that letter to the island. (If I remember aright it touches down at RAF Kinloss at 4am when the weather is rough.) The rat catcher was in the queue ahead of me this morning with his Amazon orders, very jovial because he's off to Aboyne to an estate that has recently engaged his services. He hopes the neighbouring estates will also employ him when he does a good job. The extra business will pay for the landrover he so badly wants. So I suppose the book trade isn't bringing in as much as pest control yet.

The couple who took over the Post Office and the shop that shelters it are from Fochabers. When they realised it was books I was dealing in they asked me if I knew Donald! He was their headmaster. I told D about them and he laughed heartily, remembering them as a very young couple holding hands behind the bike sheds and in the corridors between classes. How nice when childhood sweethearts marry and stay together. This couple have two or three grown children now who help them in the shop.

It got me thinking of my own schooldays' sweetheart. We didn't stay together but it lasted two years hot and heavy. There were a few of us coupled up in the Sixth form who were so uninhibited in our behaviour as to cause the headmaster to make a ruling for 'No canoodling on the Fambridge Road side' which was the side of our beautiful green playing field edged with chestnut trees where the grass was left to grow longer. The Fambridge road side was also overlooked by some of the most up-market houses in the town and no doubt school governers lived there. I tried to link up with Derek once on Friends Reunited. The only connections I made were with females who had maried, moved about ten miles away and had children. End of story. I changed my email address to escape. There was more fun to be had on the dating link. One chap I talked to for a while sent me a photo - only it wasn't of his face!