Tuesday, 19 July 2011

Walk Away or Stick My Arm In?

If I could change one thing on the Westminster Estate, apart from a bar which allows smoking, it would be to have most post boxes. There are quite a few sprinkled about the place in dark corners and corridors but more would helpful. 

In case any of my dear readers haven't been on the Estate then let me describe a parliamentary postbox to you - small brown, wooden boxes with a slit on the top and a gold plaque which says either 'External' or 'Internal'. There's never enough of the latter around and sometimes I will put all the internals to one side for when I have to take something down to the Chamber. There's an internal box between the Speaker's chair and Dave's office. I don't recommend doing this when the division bell rings.

Anyway, I was dropping off a bundle of envelopes in the external box only to then remember that each of the the forty odd letters were meant to have a second page enclosed. Disaster! I had a choice: put the last few in the box and walk away whistling or try to pull them out and run back to the office. I went with the second option but only because the postie had been and gone only moments before I had arrived. Mine were the only letters in there so it should have been easy...
Ten minutes later I still had my arm in the box, jammed at the elbow as I had reached for the last b*stard cream envelope. 
I thank my lucky stars that the policeman who happened upon me was one of the nice ones who between giggles helped me escape.

“You're doing a fine job,” he said as he twisted my arm slighted to make more room.

“Yes, I should have been a bloody vet!” He was still laughing as I walked away embarrassed.

Toodles.

No comments:

Post a Comment