The joys of modern communications.
I ordered some memory cards for my camera on- line which came by parcel force. No one was here to sign for the small package so they were handed into our local post office. I headed down to town to pick up the package and asked my son to nip in and get the delivery. He was gone five minutes when he returned with nothing. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“They won’t give me the package without some form of identification,” he replied.
Thinking to myself it just must be a misunderstanding, I nipped across the road and into the post office. The woman behind the desk was adamant that she was not handing anything over until I could prove who I was. She called over her other two colleagues to back up her argument. As I turned to leave, a friend of mine appeared behind me. In a loud voice he greeted me with the words, “Hi Alex, how are you?”
“I’m fine thanks,” I replied, “maybe you could identify me for the sake of these two ladies working behind the counter?”
“Of course” he said. But they just sat shaking their heads in a NO fashion. So, to cut a long story short, twenty five miles traveling and passport in hand, I was finally given my padded envelope. I wouldn’t mind so much but I have only been using our local post office thirty years!
Did anybody watch the fox programme on Channel Four the other night? I was hoping to see a more balanced and truthful representation than some of the contrived programmes that have been on the television in the past.
But no, we were treated to an hour of media propaganda. Any countryman watching the programme would have been aghast at seeing the poor wee cubs trying to cope with a mum who was in a desperately bad way with mange. It was obvious to anyone watching that the fox population was desperately high and in need of controlling. They were certainly not like the foxes that we have lived with all our lives that are in peak physical condition- foxes we control to the best of our ability.
We have been out this week and had three dens but we have the deepest respect for our quarry and I, for one, would be seriously concerned if we were culling foxes in that condition.