Going from pillar to post

Going from pillar to post

It is only in the past year that postal deliveries have been made to our village, but the postman, like rubbish collectors, courier delivery services and indeed anyone with any sense, will not and cannot get up our road. Without a 4-wheel drive vehicle and good off road experience, it is impossible. For the privilege of not being able to have postal deliveries, we have to pay for a post office box; something which has always seemed some sort of perverse logic to me. The post is collected once a week in our village, but the woman in the post office in our nearby 'big village' does not know which day that is.

Letter post comes daily from Athens in the aeroplane, is taken to the main post office in the south of the island where it is sorted the next day and then following morning, around eleven it is brought up to the northern post office. So we get a daily postal delivery, unless of course the 'plane is full in which case they may leave some sacks of post until the following day or even the one after that! Of course the reverse is true when posting a letter and we find that some letters to the UK arrive within an amazing 4 days whereas others linger somewhere in the system for 10 or more days.

Parcel post comes over from Athens by ferry, and as with letter post is taken to be sorted and then delivered to our local 'big village' post office. This means that as the ferry comes twice a week there is no point going to the post office to collect items except late on Friday or Tuesday mornings. The post office closes at 14.00 for the day anyway. Conversely there is no point in posting a package other than Mondays or Tuesdays for they will catch the same ferries. Greece has a wonderfully egocentric view of charging for post. They are not complicated by the politics of Europe, old empire or Commonwealth. Everything has two prices; one for internal national post and one for anywhere else in the world.

Packages or letters sent 'special delivery' or 'express delivery' have a much more circuitous route. Firstly they are sent, by road, from Athens to a town in the lower eastern side of the Peloponnese. Here they are sorted and may linger for days. Eventually they are sent by road to the town opposite us on the mainland and sent over on the daily ferry, where they are then taken to the main post office, yes we know the story now. So the shortest possible time a special or express delivery can reach us is usually two days longer than ordinary mail!

Occasionally letters go astray and are not placed in our P.O. Box we might be given a letter or card that has lain for weeks in the drawer of the local fruit and vegetable shop or supermarket where all letters of unknown location are left. Even when we collect our post we have to sift it carefully to ensure that we have ours and ours alone. When we started with our post office box number we were just allocated one. These boxes were all set in a framework of boxes only open on the inside of the post office counter. The security of the system meant that only the post office employee could reach in to your box and give you your post. But, queueing is an unknown concept in Greece and so, to save time, everyone would just step behind the post office counter and collect their post, their neighbour's post and the post for anyone else they might take en route home. About four years ago this was all changed in favour of purposely designed metal boxes. Each person was given a box, with the same number as previously and a key to the master lock for one of the four outside doors. This lasted about two weeks before people were forgetting their keys and so at first a master key was left in the door. Now, so many people have inadvertently taken the key as their own that the outer doors are now left unlocked.

There was also a dispute because one very short lady could no longer reach her box as it had moved to the top level and so the numbers had to be changed. It was further complicated by the fact that the box numbers were clearly visible on the front of the drawer to each box. However as soon as the master door, containing all these drawer fronts, was opened nobody knew which was which. So the helpful post office staff decided to number the boxes on the inside. All was well for the first two columns but after that someone forgot that one box was unused as it was at the level of the master key. Then they redid it and made a further mistake. Rather than try to get to numbering correct they have now allocated us a number two away from our original number but 'it doesn't matter, still use you old number, I will remember'. Nobody seems to be concerned that I have spent money having business cards and such printed, with the allocated number on it. It doesn't matter because we are known anyway.

If the simple matter of post is a matter of trust and timing then courier deliveries are an amazing challenge. We have three on the island. One is mainly for large containers and everything is put into a large old building and all of the paperwork is piled in one uncertain tower, in no particular order. When you think something should have arrived you go to this place, look around the huge warehouse until you see what might be your parcel. Any attempt to check through the paperwork would be a matter of a few days work.

ACS, or Athens Courier Service is brilliant in that they mostly deliver within two days of the goods arriving on the island. The courier will telephone us and say that he will be at the bottom of our road in about 20 minutes and so Waldo meets him outside the Romantica Hotel and all is well. The other courier, irrespective of any special payment for 'next day' or 'express' delivery only delivers to our village once a week, and only then if he has a few packages. Well, 'delivery' is a relative term; what this actually means is leaving it by the front door of anyone actually living alongside the road. All else is almost thrown into the supermarket with a curt shout 'phone this person and tell them they have a package'!!!!

Waldo has long since found out that wherever we buy products from, however the efficiency of the organisation, if we have a tracking facility via the Internet then all tracking details will stop either once goods are dispatched to Athens or at least when they arrive in Athens. Today we spent most of the morning chasing a package. It was due to be on the island about 10 days ago. None of the couriers here would admit to it being here, even if we collected it. On the grounds that we tell all companies to use ACS and not the other one, we had expected no problems. However when Waldo telephoned the company concerned they were able to tell us that it had somehow spent 5 days in Koropi, a town near Athens airport where lots of courier depots are located. But it had been dispatched to Kythera and arrived here 5 days ago. He was told of the name of a company we had not heard of - apparently new. Waldo telephoned the company concerned as was told, in a very rude manner, that the package was not there and that they would telephone when it arrived. The telephone was slammed down before Waldo could say any more. Red mist descended and I knew that the hunt was on in earnest. Waldo telephoned again and this time was able to give the package reference number. He was told that the package was not there and that the other people were lying. Waldo telephoned Koropi and they confirmed that it has been sent 5 days ago. They agreed that they would telephone the courier concerned and inform them of this. Rather than risk having the telephone slammed down again we decided to actually get in the car and drive to the courier's office in a village in the centre of the island.

When we arrived at the village and asked around we were told that the courier's office was not actually there but in another village, in a new building. Waldo left me doing some shopping in the cool of the supermarket whilst he set off in the hunt for his package. Sure enough he found the courier in a brand new building, just further along the road from the totally inefficient one. In fact it was the totally inefficient one, just trading under a different name. The girl in the office was adamant that the package had just arrived and that is should have come on yesterday's 'plane, but because the 'plane was full it was left until today. Now we know that not to be true at all.

With the package safe in the car, my purchases in a cool bag in the boot of the car we called at Potamos post office on our way back. Who should we meet outside the building but the owner of the courier service. 'There is a package for you in my office. It's been there for days. Why haven't you collected it?'

If Kythera had a newspaper the headlines would be 'bearded Welshman seen doing a war dance on his hat in the middle of Kytheran village'!