Oman has an interesting snail mail system. Post is not delivered to your 8 digit home address consisting of a home number and way number but only to a PO BOX.
I guess it is easier, or instead of writing the address you'd have to draw a map!
Apparently it is notoriously difficult to get your own PO Box. I have heard that there aren't many free and you have to put yourself on a waiting list. We never bothered and we use, like most of the people we know, the office PO Box. It seems to work or anyway, if paper mail is missing I am not too sure we'd notice...
I am used to S. coming back home every now and then with a bunch of paper and useless junk that miracolously works its way through from the UK with the mail redirection. Will I ever get rid of this junk mail??
So today was one of those days. I got my mail, including a payslip for a UK job that I no longer hold. Yes the one that terminated at the end of January.
I thought it would be the P60.. but when I started looking through it I thought... "wow! it's Christmas again! What's this for?" I searched for the date... it was my November pay, unfortunately the one I have already spent.
I turned the envelope over: the stamp reads LONDON 21.11.08 - a true blast from the past!
To be fair I do not think the problem lies with the Omani post system. The delivery address has been printed correctly but the country was omitted.. it is scribbled on the side of the envelope... probably a recent addition.
I wonder where on earth this envelope has been before someone worked out which country it had to go to... did it sit somewhere in England being looked at over and over again until some 8 months later someone's bulb lit up and worked out where Muscat is on the map?
ahhhh, things I have to live with without ever knowing!
1 comment:
Last Christmas I received my monthly supply of crossword magazines from Italy. After a while I noticed that the magazines were "old", looked at the envelope and found out that my mum sent it in March! And the address was complete...
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