My house is not there

Or so the Post Office tells me. This will probably surprise my lovely neighbours because it’s in the middle of a row of terraced houses. It certainly looks as if it’s there when I go outside after opening the front door, and my lovely grocery delivery man, equally lovely bin men and the other parcel people have no trouble finding it.

But no, the Royal Snail, as I affectionately call them, have solemnly told me that it’s not there so they cannot deliver my parcels. Talking to the other people in the road, as we do round here, no one else on my side of the road is getting parcels either, but no one’s suggested they’re using a non-existent address. They just get a boring ‘unable to deliver.’ I’ve sent them photographs and had farcical email conversations. Meanwhile, none of us are getting our parcels delivered.

I went to Street View and called up an image, which solved one mystery and caused a new one because Street View shows the back of my house, which Royal Mail are happy to agree exists. The front doesn’t, because, you see, it isn’t on Street View. I’ve known for ages that SatNavs take people to the back of the house, not the front, because we all have the same problem on this side of the road. It’s down a very narrow lane where vans regularly get stuck, and it does look very pretty on Google with the cherry blossom in bloom. It’s just not so good when you want your parcels. I can see the whole of the road view, but when you try to zoom in, my side of the road isn’t there!

It’s now been escalated to a technical team, and they’ve reported it to Google, and we’ve found what they call a temporary fix. The driver will set his Sat Nav to my postcode , and then drive slowly down it and look on the left-hand side and read the numbers on the gates. I know, it’s revolutionary, and I hope I’ve made you smile at the end of a hot period where we’re all excused for doing strange things. Personally, I suspect the problem will resolve itself when our usual lovely driver comes back from his annual holiday…

I’ve enjoyed my sloth week, which I interpret as minimal cooking using the oven, maximum early morning gardening and then following the shade round the garden. I’m getting more confident about using my new selfie camera but I’m hungry for the harbour. I won’t care if we’ve got light rain next week if it’s cool enough to go for a long walk and watch the birds again.

So here’s a picture to keep you going. Have a great week and see you on Tuesday when I’ll tell you about one of my favourite books that’s being published on Thursday. It’s called Letters From a Spy, and this time Amy doesn’t find a body. Please note, I didn’t say that someone else didn’t find anything either!