Grumpy Postie


There was a knock on the living room window around 11am this morning
I had been asleep just 50 minutes.
There was the grumpy postman, he wanted a word.
" Your dog is too vicious when I am posting your letters !" he said
Mary gave him a big, fat, fuck off, smile from her position on the back of the sofa
" You need to do something about it!" 
Mary couldn't have looked any more proud
I apologised for her behaviour , and limply assured him that I would do something about it
She learned the letterbox thing from William.
He delighted in baiting the postie.

The fun of Sheffield feels a long way away after the reality of night shifts.
It only seemed like yesterday that I was sat with friends on the roof terrace of the tiny Curzon cinema in George Street, sipping gin and tonics and talking intelligent talk!


51 comments:

  1. Sensible solution to the postman problem. Mary knows full well, with winning smile, that you can't teach an old dog (sorry, Mary!) new tricks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good job it wasn't winnie.
      He would have lost an arm

      Delete
  2. From the look of the blue hand the Postman should be more concerned about his poor circulation than whether or not Mary chooses to make a meal of his unfriendliness.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He fell out of love with us when the postcard competition was on

      Delete
    2. Sarah Jones10:40 am

      Grumpy bugger :) x

      Delete
  3. that's quite a funny solution. i bet it will make the grumpy postman smile!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gin and tonics are always a good thing, especialy when the lime is squeezed as you drop it in.

    ReplyDelete
  5. A box is a good compromise, or perhaps fit one of those cage baskets things around your letterbox on the back of the door. That way Mary can see the nice juicy fingers ... but can't bite them off 😄

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tried this but I can't open the door properly

      Delete
  6. Barbara Anne4:31 pm

    Good solution to the hazard of mail delivery when there is a terrier defending the house! We had two dogs long ago who each considered the postman to be the enemy but neither home had a mail slot in the door!

    Can you count the number of remaining night shifts on one hand yet? Hope so. :)

    Hugs!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barbara Anne6:20 pm

      Well, every shift worked is one less! Do you have time off between your current job and your new job?

      Delete
    2. I've not been given a start date as yet babs

      Delete
  7. Mary almost looks contrite in that photo. More likely she's sad at all the missed opportunities this box represents.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She's not quite herself at the moment

      Delete
  8. Betty likes to'help' the postie too. She's managed to break two letterbox draught excluders in the process. I do try to remember to close the internal ( vestibule)door,but she can sometimes open that too. Thankfully. I don't have a regular postie and none have complained about the berry hound, yet. Apparently dogs see it as a sign of their territory being invaded.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. William always saw it is fun
      He loved scaring the postman

      Delete
  9. Oh for God's sake -- the guy is on the other side of the door! Can't he put the letters through without putting his fingers through too?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We had a large German shepherd and he took his guard dogging seriously. Unless, you did what we taught our postman to do.

      The postman said in a very stern voice SIT,
      and that was that.

      Delete
  10. We had a terrible postman several years ago, he said Dillon was aggressive, the only postie to ever say that about one of our dogs in over 20 years in this village ( Retrievers and now a Labrador )
    We put a postbox on the outside of our gate so he didn't need to come into our garden.
    The guy wouldn't even hand letters to me over the gate if I happened to be in the garden. ... They had to go in the box.

    He became so unpopular in the village and then disappeared... I heard someone had thumped him !!!

    Now I do not support this in any way at all but perhaps he was in the wrong job.

    I do wonder what became of him because once I solved the so called aggressive golden retriever problem, he and I got on well !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love these comments much more than my original post x

      Delete
  11. We had one of those wire boxes on the letterbox but we got got lots of A4 envelopes delivered and they didn't 'plop' into the basket they just sat protruding half in half out signalling we were not in. We got rid of it.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Problem solved....for now.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall went he went home and vented!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He's been pissed off with me since the famous postcard competition

      Delete
  14. Anonymous6:39 pm

    Is a box on the wall an idea?
    I lost loads of letters with my Boxer dog chewing the ones where the glue used is some sort of animal derivative and obvs very tasty to a dog!
    Tess x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd prefer an American style corrugated iron post box

      Delete
  15. If the vicious letterbox doesn't get your fingers, the dog will!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I feel a bit sorry for the postie. He is obviously not comfortable with dogs - and I love your solution. I am sorry to read in the comments that Mary is not herself at the moment. I hope whatever it is can be helped. Quickly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did and I was kind.....hence the new box

      Delete
  17. from your pix above, I would say mary's expression is "yeah, I'm a badarse, sue me!".

    ReplyDelete
  18. When it was the local elections the leaflet deliverers pushed the leaflets in with wooden spatulas it worked no nipped fingers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. William once mistook a 10 year old pushing flyers through the door and bither finger
      He was such a gentle soul too

      Delete
  19. You could get one of those American post boxes at the gate and the postie would have to put the wee flag up when you got mail! I feel you need another postcard competition soon just to check out the new postal situation! x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now I don't think they sell them here, could someone send me one?

      Delete
    2. manomano.co.uk sell one for just over £15 and Amazon Uk have them for 20 something pounds. Might be worth a try.

      Delete
  20. There were 2,484 reported dog attacks on postal staff in The United Kingdom last year. Nuff said. It's not funny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No but one or two previous commenters were making light.

      Delete
  21. You could look for chainmail gloves, like fish cutters wear, for the postman

    ReplyDelete
  22. That is a great solution. I'm sorry the postman is still upset over the postcard competition. I wonder why? They couldn't have been very heavy because they didn't all arrive at once. Do postmen have to sort their own loads, perhaps? I wish you had the kind of postman who was happy you were getting so much mail!

    Poor Mary - I hope she feels better soon. Ears?

    ReplyDelete
  23. We have a letter 'box' that is detached from the house. Our Postie only comes to the house if there is something to sign for. This might be a solution.

    ReplyDelete
  24. This is from the Posties side.... When a pretty friend from school took a Christmas holiday job as a Postie she had something rather odd posted to her from the inside of a house ( use your imagination )
    I don't think Police were involved. It would have been about 1979

    ReplyDelete
  25. you could get one of those post boxes that you put on the outside and put it on the wall next to your door. if Postie put dog biscuits through the door he would be a lot more popular!

    ReplyDelete
  26. I like your ingenious solution to the grumpy postie problem.

    ReplyDelete

I love all comments Except abusive ones from arseholes