A Winter's Tale.

Every now and again Blandshire Constabulary has to send me something important. It is not usually something that is important to me, but something that is important for them to be able to say I have received, in case I file a suit against them.

Last year I was eagerly awaiting one such document, which I expected would appear in my docket, post-tray or hand, with a vital deadline impending. Come the day before the deadline, I contacted Personnel. It was sent a month ago, they said. The Personnel Manager was forced to leave the document with the duty sergeant at another station, for me to drive there at 3am one night following a late shift in order to get it submitted by the deadline. The Manager was so adamant that he had put it into the internal mail a month ago that he even gave me a dressing down by email for not keeping my paperwork in good order.

I just imagined that the document had gone where all good documents go - to a desk in the Home Office.

Just as Christmas was pending, with all the lovely parcels that flood through one's door at that time of year, I received a mysterious card from the postal service informing me that an item was waiting for me at the depot. Wonderful, I thought, the knitted pullover I have been long-awaiting from dear old auntie.

At the depot I was informed that the sender had failed to pay the postage on this item, which came to the shocking amount of £1.05. I did consider refusing to cover it and sending the present back to auntie with a rude note, but the Christmas spirit won me over and I coughed up the relevant amount.

Can you imagine my astonishment to find that the envelope I was handed bore the name of Blandshire Constabulary as the sender? Surely, SURELY the Area Commander had not knitted me a pullover!

I open the item and lo, the vital document that I had been waiting for over a month ago.

I really do despair sometimes.

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