My Mother-in-Law, The Saga Continues

[clovehitched]

My MiL frequently gives Sylvia grief if she doesn't send a birthday card to her grandparents in good time. Imagine then, how gratifying it was for Sylvia's birthday card from my MiL (her birthday was yesterday) to arrive this morning. Here's why:



We've lived in this house for 9 years. Sylvia has lived in Cambridge since 1993. My mother-in-law still not only does not know our postcode, but after several times of being told, she still writes it s C-something-or-other, a number, space, squiggle, presumably on the basis that postcodes are part of addresses and she Must Put One On, even if it's not the right one, or even illegible.

In this case she seems to have written CM6 squiggle. CM6 would be somewhere near Chelmsford, I imagine. Cambridge is CB, not CM, and we live in CB1, not CB6. Presumably the Royal Mail sent the card to Chelmsford, where the sorting office looked at it, scratched their heads, crossed out the "CM6" bit, and put it back in the post, for it to make its way here, with further manual intervention because it doesn't have a postcode.

I could phone my mother-in-law and tell her this, but it would be a waste of effort because she almost certainly won't care. She's been told our postcode many times, but never writes it down. This no-doubt gives her a reason to complain about how terrible it is that the postal service can't get a card to Sylvia, oh woe is her, etc. etc..

Normal human beings would just write the damned post code down.

Originally posted at http://auntysarah.dreamwidth.org/204852.html - you can comment here or there.

Comments

[natalie-i-am.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday.

Of course making sure the post code is correct is soo hard.

That said, Royal Mail has issues getting the letter to the right place even though you DO put the right postcode on.

[naath.livejournal.com]

WTF! That's so stupid. At least if you don't know it LEAVE IT OFF! I assume the smudged out party is your actual address and the posty didn't actually know from the name...

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Yes, I blurred out the street name in Photoshop.

[parmonster.livejournal.com]

This makes the fact that I know your postal code that much more hilarious.

I've known you, what? About a year? Live some 6,000 miles away, and have never had cause to need or want your postal code.

More kudos to B, she's a real special one, that lady.

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Yup!

[techiebabe.livejournal.com]

My aunt insists on writing to us at Davies Avenue; it's Davies Lane. Goodness knows I've told them often enough. Oh well.

Frustrating, isn't it? Especially when it causes a delay!

But there was a postal strike yesterday, so post that was due for Friday will have come today - not your MIL's fault, even though she is a PITA.

I had to send my mother's birthday card on Thursday so it would get there this weekend; meant that I had to get husband to buy one in town and send it for both of us, which is a bit scary. I think he went for one of those b&w photos with risque caption. Hmm.

I doubt you'll get your MIL to get the postcode right. Maybe she could write nothing at all, if she can't be arsed to check with you or on Royal Mail's website?

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Didn't know about the postal strike. Ho hum.

I doubt we could get her to stop doing what she's doing - it seems to be one of those things which Isn't Important in her world, like getting my sex and name right, so she doesn't bother. :-(

[the-local-echo.livejournal.com]

I remember all through my teenage years she'd ask me to recite her parents' postcode because she couldn't remember it. They'd lived in the same house since before I was born. I wonder if she finally got to remember it for herself when I moved out and her husband got dementia. After twenty years.

[paulathomas.livejournal.com]

Full post codes only started in the 1970's IIRC so she, like me, would have grown up without them and our concept of an address would have not included a post code. When the codes came in she would have had to add them to her concept of an address. I had a little difficulty with that too although remember odd bits of code is something I am good at.

[scaryj.livejournal.com]

I' am still getting over the Astroturf lawn...It's not as if she wants to play football in all weathers?

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Belated happy birthday Sylvia (just got back from Scotland)

Hope you had a grand holiday :o)

Also, what kind of mother addresses her daughter as 'Dr'? I'm having images of my mother (if I actually ever received a missive from her, which is unlikely after thirty odd years, but she's the same kind of person as your mum) doing the same thing with my list of three degrees and three postgrad thingies and I'm cringing at the thought!