Post Goalposts

Last week, a monumental thing happened.
The Post Lady, who has scurried her way up our ever-worsening driveway to attempt to deliver our letters, smiled at me. Not only that, but she wished me a happy birthday, and even shared with me that her birthday falls in December, too.
It felt marvellous to finally have gained her trust. She was so meek and timid at first, cowering in terrified awe at the back door, seeking repeated assurance that it was fine to just chuck the letters in the pit at the front of the house, and leg it.
Clearly, she wasn’t happy with that, and I must admit that the novelty of hurdling the half-wall to clamber into the dingy hole to collect my mail was wearing thin.
So I provided her with a nice green recycling tub, on which I scribbled “Post” in Sharpie, and asked her to use that. It seemed to do the trick, and hence, after months of awkwardness, we are now friends. The Post Lady is hereby tamed.

But not for long. Big Seymour has other ideas.

Unbeknownst to me, he has been doing a spot of late night internet surfing, and he announced that he wants to buy something proper for the post to be received into. Now, most good folk have a common-or-garden letter box built into their front doors. Not us – he has only gone and chosen one to be erected outside the front gate. It is the exact replica of a Royal Mail box, complete with red paint and collection times, with the words “Private Box, No Collections” pompously printed on the display.

I can’t decide how I feel about this. One the one hand, I like its quintessential traditional British feel. And on the other..? I can see myself emptying the box only to find hundreds of items of post that are simply not for us, shoved at haste into what looks like a standard collection box by all the cars that pass us on their journeys to and from Brighton and all villages in between.
I have other things I’d rather do.
Not only that, but the rather lovely brick wall that Big Seymour spent the summer building, making our exterior boundary deceptively posh, now must be violated to accommodate said post box. Surely that is sacrilege?

Despite my misgivings, the Royal Mail replica box is now here, stored,of all places, in my bedroom, awaiting its fate. I have not seen Big Seymour this excited in a long time.

I am sad about the effect this will have on my relationship with the Post Lady, though. She will no longer have any cause to tip-toe to my back door and find the recycling tub, and she will retreat into oblivion once more. To make matters worse, this coming weekend, Big Seymour plans the “electrify the gates”. So not only will we have the worst house on the street, it will also be the most unrealistically ostentatious.
I’m going with it. There’s no point trying to fight a man who has dreamed of having electric gates for nearly three years. No longer will I have to award the title of Gate Girl to Little Seymour Number Two, who (almost) always willingly gets out of the car to do the honours. I’m sure Boy Seymour will enjoy the magic of the remote control gate device so much that I’m bound to find it hidden in his secret stash. I’ll have to frisk him before school in the mornings, like I did today, to ensure he doesn’t try to add it to the collection of keys, screwdrivers and mini-spirit levels that live in his pockets.
Of course, it’s something else to worry about, too. Big Seymour assures me that there will be a safety device fitted to the gates that will avoid any nasty child-squashing incidents. But I foresee a period of intense stress before I am convinced of this.

Last weekend, with the help of Bonnie and Clyde (aka Grandma and Grandad Seymour), we installed a few more steel beams. There is now a partial red metal skeleton that will support the upstairs rooms in a future too distant to contemplate. But it is taking shape, and that is exciting! Before they went up, I couldn’t imagine how Big Seymour would orchestrate the lifting of such large beams into place, but with some wobbly old scaffolding, a few concrete blocks and a ping-pong bat (yes, a ping-pong bat – it reminds me of when we moved the oil tank on a skate board), the four of us did the job with only a bruised shin to report.

Today, the Four Little Seymours are breaking up for their school holidays. Unusually, we will have a week off school before the Big Day, and I’m sure there is plenty to occupy us for that time. We have a few lunch dates booked in, several more presents to organise and plenty of Christmas films to watch. But I suspect there will be no opportunity for boredom next week, when I am having to send the Four Little Seymours in shifts up the road, to redeliver all the mail that has been mistakenly deposited in our shiny new red receptacle in the wall.
Gate Girl may be redundant, but I’m guessing I’ll soon need to nominate a Post Boy.
At least that should keep him out of trouble…?