Things are not always what they seem!

Q: When is the Post Office not the Post Office?

                                           A: When it's the Royal Mail?

Q: When is the Royal Mail not the Royal Mail?

                                            A: When it's the Post Office.

Yea, I am confused too.

You buy stamps at the Post Office, you stick them on letters, and the Royal Mail delivers the. The Post Office will weigh letters and tell you what is the correct amount to pay for sending that letter - delivered by the Royal Mail. When the postman has difficulty delivering something to our house - usually because he has tapped gently on the door instead of ringing the doorbell, which DOES work and resounds through most of the house - he sticks a note through the door telling us we can collect it from the Post Office in the village.

So it might not seem unreasonable to think that the two were interconnected. 

Not so, apparently.

Yesterday there was a notice telling us that the postman had been unable to deliver a parcel, which would be waiting for us today in Oldham.

Why not the local Post Office?

Well, first of all, we consider ourselves fortunate to have a Post Office of our own. Many small places do not have their own branch. Like many such small Post Offices, it is also a local shop, selling cards, stationery items, rubbish cheap toys, general tat and occasionally things like tea bags, undercutting the Co-op next door.

This establishment has just changed hands and is currently closed for refurbishment, re-opening some time next week.

Consequently they were not available to accept our parcel.

So today I set off to the big Post Office in the town centre. I checked which service I needed, collected a ticket and eventually was called to a counter position. There I handed over the card and showed my ID. "Oh, this is not here," said the lady behind the counter, "this is the Post Office. You want Royal Mail." "Are they not the same thing?" I asked. "Oh, no! We have been separate for years." Who knew? Not me anyway.

Of course, I should have looked at the card properly but when Phil said it needed collecting from Oldham, I assumed Post Office. Now we have to locate the Royal Mail, in another part of the town! How very frustrating!

Never make assumptions.