Delivering a parcel should not be

difficult but it seems it is.  The group of units in which I now live have letter boxes of course but these are some distance away out by the footpath. They are not secure. We are not permitted to put any sort of lock on the box which belongs to us. 

As most people get very little paper mail this is probably of no great concern. The local "postie" tells me it never takes her long to deal with the mail for all twelve units. 

I get most of my mail, such as it is, delivered to a post office box at the local post office. It makes sense. I can access it any time. It is the "street" address we had to have when we set up the micro aid group forty something years ago. It is secure.

The problem is not with letters it is with parcels. There are some places which will not deliver to a post office box. They use "courier" services rather than post mail. That can be a problem. A parcel went missing some weeks back. I have not received compensation for that even though the courier service was well aware they were at fault.  This parcel, again something to be shared out to a craft group, was "unable to be delivered to a safe location". It is still "on board" for delivery. 

In this instance I can only assume that the person doing the deliveries is not a regular post office person. It will be one of the many people who deliver parcels outside regular hours. They have other jobs. The parcel delivery job is extra, a job to be done at nights or weekends. It might be they could not find their way down the path in the dark. Yes, the parcel might get there in the end...when they can find time. 

Someone in another unit did have a parcel delivered yesterday. The parcel delivery person was going to leave it with me. He asked if I was L... and I shook my head and pointed to the unit in question. I was talking to someone in Venezuela at the time and it was difficult enough or I might have asked if he had the parcel being delivered to me.

Getting parcels in the post is not the huge excitement it was when I was a mere kitten. Parcels were rare. They came right to the front door, delivered by someone wearing a post office uniform and a cap. Now, unless a signature is required, they get dumped wherever the delivery person decides is convenient. 

The parcel should have been here three or four days ago. I am now wondering if it will take another three or four weeks to be returned to the post office which might let me know it is available. If they do then the "it cannot go to a post office" message will make even less sense than it does now.