Today: Leaves on frozen pavement, Ipswich Grove: The saddest sign, The cedars.
A treacherous day out delivering. Black ice turning roads and pavements into ice rinks. We stopped to help cheer a man who had fallen and bashed his head on Christchurch Road, whilst he waited for an ambulance. Eyes to the ground, looking for ice free routes.
My head is filled with cold and I feel rotten.
Today: Frosty leaves and spiders webs
A very cold day, off to a difficult start as it took three turns of the yard to locate my van (which has just been changed). All the numbers obscured in the heavy frost, too cold for anyone to bother to quip “it’s the red one”.
Frosty leaves were beautifully white edged and sharded spiders webs were visible. So cold that I finished cold despite the thermal layers, hat, neck warmer and extra Jumper. Starting to deliver Christmassy looking parcels and plenty of cards.
Today: Pink leaf, Ipswich Road: Leaf, Mount Pleasant: Windscreen leaf visiter, Ipswich Rd: Foliage, Harford Manor Rd
Another challengingly long and damp day’s delivering. We head out at 9:00am and back at 15:45 having delivered non stop. Bundles are heavy and so we use the trolley on most loops of the walk. My head is down, pushing on with the delivery and so it is the leaves on the ground I notice mostly today.
Today: Posties calling cards, Delivery Depot: Blue dot, Allen’s Lane: Gleaming Newmarket road.
A difficult day, mountains of packets and parcels to sort. Tricky to move around the delivery office, since so many Yorks filled with mail in all available spaces.
We are late out on delivery and it is cold and showery. We have to prioritise the mail and yet still we are only finished at 3pm. Tomorrow will be worse. Mail boxes are jammed full with Christmas cards.
Today: Windscreen leaf, Grove Avenue: Mail trolley, Newmarket Road: Christmas tree, Honor Close.
So much mail to sort that we are not out delivering until 10am. Cold and unexpectedly showery. When the sun comes the light is clear. We are not finished delivering until 4:15 pm, so deliver into the fading of the day. Christmas trees sparkle and we peek into cosy and warm homes. Customers seem chatty, perhaps pleased to see us after our two day strike.
Today: Colours of tinsel and autumn leaves match in Church Avenue East: Red stems, Ipswich Road: Fence mushrooms, Plantsmans Close: This weird small fence/ wall end moment caught me in Harford Manor Close.
Not the influx of mail we were expecting, the two days strike seems to have really put a spanner in the works. An eerily quiet day on the streets. Damp and cold again. More strikes for the next two days.
Today: Autumn Leaves, Church Avenue: Spider’s web, Allens Lane: Wet leaves, Ipswich Road.
A slight mist hugging us damp, it lifts later, partially. Moist droplets, catch the eye,on webs and foliage. Burnt orange is the colour of the morning with the Beech trees looking splendid. Still plenty of foliage, flowers and even a peek of lilac in a lavender bush, feels unusual for late November.
Plenty to deliver, increasing numbers of cards and ordered Christmas presents. Finally less catalogues and promotional material and the backlog of magazines which weren’t delivered last week due to the strikes.
Today: Pointy leaves, Christchurch road: Mysterious box, which caught my eye, East Anglian Squash and Tennis centre: Leaves, Grove Avenue: Twisted fruits, Ipswich Road.
Back after two days of strike to more mail than we could deliver in Saturday working hours. Put in the overtime to clear it before the tidal wave of black friday shopping washes in.
A beautiful softly sunny day made for a very agreeable days delivering.
Today: Wet leaves, Ipswich Grove: Leaf filled puddle, Ipswich Road
A challenging day all round. A band of heavy rain moved in and through during the course of the delivery. My waterproof coat is not quite up to the job and the van and my glasses needed constant de-misting. High volumes of letters, cards and parcels to deliver, plus collections made for a long wet, cold day.
Despite hoping for a deal to be struck we received confirmation that we are striking for the next 48 hrs. It was difficult to move around the office this morning for volumes of parcels I can’t begin to imagine the volumes we will be dealing with when we return to work Saturday…
Ginny Bain 