Correos express doesn’t come here…

…And this could be one of the reasons why!

Twice this week my street has been completely blocked by lorries delivering building materials.

Poor Vic had to squeeze past the latest cement truck on his crutches which was no mean feat!

The whole street was out in force checking the overhead electricity cables which had to be lifted over the crane every few yards!

We caused almost as much of a stir as the lorry on our progress down the street, as Vic was accompanied by his sister Diane, over from the States, who at 84, dressed glamorously in black with statement silver jewellery cut a figure rarely seen! I think they thought she was some kind of film star.

But to get back to the title, I have been waiting for at least a fortnight for Correos Express – the parcel delivery arm of the Spanish post – to deliver a package from Amazon. I was quite excited at the prospect of having an address where I could actually receive parcels as no courier would ever come up the track to my house in Cariatiz.

My excitement was misplaced. For a whole week I received messages every day telling me they had tried to deliver my parcel but I wasn’t in.

But they were blatant lies because I was in every time! I would literally be by the door and a message would come through saying they had tried to deliver it one minute ago and I was out!

I checked with my Morroccan neighbours (who are always outside doing some sort of dust-raising demolition activity on their house) and no, they hadn’t seen a delivery van.

I checked with a postman who happened to be passing one of the times, he said it was nothing to do with him.

Finally one of my neighbours, overhearing my discussion with a second postman, said simply: “Correos Express doesn’t come up here”.

I asked why but he just shrugged and said there was an older van driver who didn’t mind coming up, but also a younger one who never would.

Now there are several practical reasons why I personally as a van driver might fail to deliver things to my house.

For example, there is no street sign telling you which road it is, the street is narrow and liable to be blocked by hulking construction lorries as above, and even if you get up there you may find it very difficult to turn around and get down.

(This frequently happens to me so I started leaving my car at the bottom until the rubbish collection guy told me that wasn’t a good idea either as “niños malos” might damage it. I went to have a look and after spotting a kid sized footprint on the bonnet and a couple of suspicious dust drawings on the back took his point and moved it back up, but still it is a bit of a nightmare manoeuvring up there.)

However, getting back to the point, there’s no reason why the driver couldn’t have called me and asked me to come down. After all they had my phone number to send me incorrect automated messages that gave me no option to speak to anyone human to sort it out.

So, I kind of wonder if it has anything to do with this welcoming message at the turning to my neighbourhood…

But I do think if I am brave enough to live there, a van driver should be brave enough to bring me my deliveries!
And just so you know, I did finally get my parcel (a juicer in case you are interested) but only after driving to the depot on some industrial estate in Viator where they were not at all apologetic and completely unforthcoming about why it wasn’t delivered.

The guy did make a note to call me in person next time though, so now I need to order something else just to test him out. Maybe a nice new street sign!