M, Me, Liam and Jo. 

Saturday night at Jo's and Gelibolu

Last night we cruised over to Jo's place (M's sister) at Clapham Junction.
We took over a bottle of gin and some tonic - that is our latest, greatest drink.
Jo lives in a big house with another girl and 6 other boys (plus a couple of hangers-on).
Had a pretty cool time, hanging out with the lads. Played a bit of indoor cricket with a Video tape cover as the bat and a tennis ball. I have been feeling very sports deprived lately.
We got our new didgy camera that we had got Jo to purchase for us at Pool.
Managed to make it home on the last train.
I will attach a photo taken at Jo's house with Me, M, Jo and Liam.

Going to Turkey on thursday, it will be AWESOME.
Meeting up with some of the Kowanyama lads - Tony and Dan, who have been trekking around south-east asia and dubai for the last 3 months. It will be really cool to see them.
Also meeting up with a good turkish mate of mine, Gorkem, who I know from Uni days in Brisbane. Haven't seen him for a couple of years so it will be great to see him again.
He will show us around his fair city of Istanbul.

Gelibolu is the Turkish version of the word Gallipoli.
Will write another posting before we leave on Thursday.

Parcel update

Well we recovered the parcel.
I take away all the bad things I said about the postal people.
We rang the postal centre and few times and wandered up there last saturday morning and they had found our parcel. M was delighted and has worn her boots each time we have gone out. Now she just needs more clothes to go with the boots.

Postman Dodge

I am turning into a whining pom.
Maybe that will be the real theme to this blog, forget the madness and bring on the whingeing (hmmmm, to "e" or not to "e").

Fanfare/Trumpets blazing
Welcome to this blog, you will witness the transformation of a staunch, true-blue Aussie. From a man so tough he eats glass and pisses out sand to a WHIngeing, Mad, Pom Aussie (WHIMPA).

Back to my whinge for the week.
It was the missus's birthday last week, and mama missus had sent a present to the missus - some lovely brown leather boots.
The missus really needed those boots, she is so short of footwear that I have had to draw some thongs on her feet with a nikko pen every morning.
Anyway the parcel arrived at our letterbox the day after her birthday, unfortunately we were at work and the parcel was too big for the letterbox
So Postman Dodge inserted a card in the letterbox telling us to go to the Barking Delivery Centre to pick up the parcel.
So the next day I got up early and trundled off to the delivery centre for a 7:30am opening.
When I arrived and presented my card, the man couldn't find my parcel and said that someone would ring me later today.
Nope, no call.
The next morning, I got there early and while I waited at the ground floor entrance, a man was leaning out of a second floor window of the delivery centre, smoking a cigarette and casually dropping ash from his cigarette into my personal space (at my feet!). After a couple of minutes the butt made it to my feet as well.

I presented my card again and the man told me that the parcel was still missing, an investigation was underway and his manager would ring me.
The manager rang me later that day and told me the parcel had disappeared, and if I liked, I could fill in a claim at a post office.
I was pissed and said "Sure mate" and hung up.
I have looked on the Internet and found that we are not the only residents to have complaints about the Barking Delivery Office.
Our local member of parliament has had meetings with Royal Mail representatives about the poor service in this area.
This is from a press release on ePolitix.com 25 October 2004
http://www.epolitix.com/EN/MPWebsites/Margaret+Hodge/4d42bae2-f8e4-41a4-b019-748bd1564d82.htm
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Hodge Secures Important Pledge From Post Office On Deliveries

Margaret Hodge secured a pledge from Royal Mail’s Regional Manager that deliveries will improve in Barking. The pledge was made in a meeting Mrs Hodge held with the leading Post Office official in the area last Friday.

Mrs Hodge came to the meeting with a dossier of notes cataloguing complaints she had received from constituents which she took up with Ian Songhurst, Area Manager for Romford Post Office.

During the meeting Mr Songhurst and his colleagues confirmed that there had in fact been a criminal investigation into missing post in one part of Barking, and that a postman had in fact been dismissed following an investigation.

An official from the Post Office suggested that independent research had shown that next day deliveries were up to 90.5% compared to the target for the area of 92.5%. However, Mrs Hodge responded saying that in the 10 years she had represented the area she had never received so many complaints about Royal Mail from her constituents. The complaints, covering a wide area of Barking, included not receiving mail for days and post going missing all together.

Ian Songhurst conceded that the quality of service provided by the Post Office had been poor, and that as Mrs Hodge suggested, this was in large part due to the reliance on temporary postmen and women in Barking who did not know the area and who were generally less reliable. He explained that an attempt would be made to employ permanent staff across the whole of Barking.

Mrs Hodge has undertaken to monitor the service the Post Office provides over the coming months, and would welcome comments from people in Barking. She will be meeting with Royal Mail again in six months time to review the progress they have made.

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Click here to see examples of letters from pissed-off residents - missing mail/passports/cheques etc...

I suspect the lovely brown leather boots now adorn the feet of Missus Postman Dodge.
This is not the end, I will keep you posted....