I’m not currently at my best. If I tell you that I went through most of the day under the impression that it was Tuesday you may get some idea of the impairment suffered by my softening brain.

This was despite the fact I knew the car had gone away on Wednesday, which was yesterday. A simple process of deduction could have told me that it was Thursday today but I managed to miss out on that basic step.

This morning I managed to do the parcels on my own as the owner sorted a big trade order, and when it came time to get the parcels to the post office he noticed that I’d stamped several parcels up with the right stamps for Special Delivery but had stuck the labels for Signed For delivery on them.

That looks very inelegant – Special Delivery, I can just about live with, though the old name Registered didn’t, in my opinion, need changing. But Signed For sounds like an incomplete phrase rather than a description of a postal service. It was better when it was called Recorded Delivery.

In an ideal world you wouldn’t need this sort of postal service. Unfortunately there are so many thieves, liars and idiots on eBay that we need to use it to protect ourselves.

The normal problem is that somebody gets in touch a couple of weeks after you post something and says it wasn’t delivered.

Stamps, stamps, stamps 

We then go on the Royal Mail site and put in the tracking number. Normally it shows that the post office tried to deliver it and, as nobody was there, put a card through the letter box telling the addressee to go and pick it up or arrange to have it delivered again when they will be in.

Unfortunately people don’t always see the bright red card. They also often seem to think it’s my job to arrange the redelivery for them, even though I don’t know when they will be in.

Some, even though it’s been signed for, insist that it hasn’t been delivered and tell us they want another parcel sending free of charge.It is possible that someone has signed for it fraudulently, but again, that really isn’t my problem.

One man actually accused us of knowing when it would be delivered and driving up to Scotland to sign for it and steal it. We were tactful, because he clearly had more problems than missing post.

It’s not even as if it was a sustainable business model…

And at that point, having established that some people have worse senior moments that I do, I will sign off.