Deliverance

A thin, eerie mist drifts across the warm, festering swamp and the sound of duelling banjos can be heard in the distance. I'm standing still, trying not to move, afraid but strangely fascinated by the scene unfolding before me...

Well, actually it's a cold November day in a Kentish village and I can hear the builders working in our bathroom on the floor below me whistling the theme tune from "The Third Man". I'm sitting at my computer waiting for a parcel to arrive. I waited yesterday, too. Three parcels arrived yesterday, but not here. They arrived when I was talking to our landlord about the building work and I didn't hear the delivery guy knock, so he left a card saying that the parcels had been delivered to "Number 3". That's all well and good, but there are at least three number threes in the immediate vicinity, plus several more besides around the village green by which our house is situated. So, somebody had signed for a delivery of expensive computer equipment belonging to my boyfriend and I had no idea who they were. Major stress ensued. Luckily, before I resorted to touring the village in search of the stuff, the lady from two doors down came and knocked to tell me that she had taken in the delivery, so I went round to collect it. She was so nice, bless her. She even asked if I minded her accepting the parcels, which of course I didn't. It was so good to be on the receiving end of her neighbourly kindness - as I told her, there should be more people like her about.

Anyway, having recovered from one delivery crisis, I now find myself waiting for the second consignment of the new PC system that my boyfriend has ordered. The online delivery tracker said it was loaded onto a van for delivery yesterday. It didn't come yesterday. The online delivery tracker now says that it has been loaded onto a van for delivery today. As yet it hasn't arrived. I have to say I'm not holding out much hope for it. In the past we have tried to pick up parcels from this particular delivery company's depot, which is situated in windswept badlands surrounding Ashford, and have had to resort to flagging down one of their vans to ask for directions to the god forsaken place. Every time I hear a van outside I jump up to the front window, fearful that the packages will end up somewhere else other than here. I'm existing in a permanent state of cat-like readiness, poised and ready to leap up through the slightly trippy fug of bathroom sealant that is wafting through the house and answer the door as soon as the delivery arrives. If it ever gets here at all.