Be at home when the passports arrive

This is very important.

Otherwise, this is what happens:

The man from Secure Mail comes to the house and buzzes on the flat with the non-working buzzer. This happens at 9am while Grit is sitting at the breakfast table chewing her way through rice dream and muesli, wondering about her fatty habit webs. After 345 calories worth, Grit gets up and goes to another flat. As she passes the front door she notices a yellow card which reads that someone tried to deliver something. Then her mobile buzzes a message. This reads how a Secure Mail delivery driver can deliver me very important documents if I am at home.

Well we have had this before. We can wallpaper the message WE ARE AT HOME in a big banner across the front door and still we get a card which says 'Sorry! No one was in when we called!' This happens often, and I bet it does not just happen to Dig and Grit. This happens because drivers for delivery companies leave the cards and not the parcels on a routine basis. Believe me, I have complained. I have gone to desks and put my finger on them. I have written wallpaper sized messages and photographed them with me in front of them holding the day's newspaper as evidence should the entire matter come to court. I have done what any slightly unhinged mother of triplets can do.

So today I am incensed. Here is another ruddy card, claiming I am not in, when I am. Grit immediately texts back a short, sharp, quite frankly rude message to the effect that I am in.

Actually, I do omit to say that the buzzer to that flat doesn't work. You have to buzz them all. However, I exonerate myself on this because there is a message to that effect in the lobby and one could make the supposition that an effective delivery man's mind would read and interpret that message rather than scarper as quick as possible because it is raining and nice and dry and warm in the van.

The next step for Grit is to write a big rude message that reads: I am IN. Buzz all flats marked to left' and stick it on the front door. I then proceed to mark big, big arrows to all buzzer bells. Grit really has done this on the spur of the moment without thinking that actually her next step is to go out.

When we get back there is another card. This time it reads 'We tried to deliver your mail again. Are you in or out?'

Shortly afterwards the phone rings. At the other end is a Secure Mail delivery man. Grit immediately becomes a backsliding weed and starts her grovelling apology, reassuring the very nice gentleman that it was not a premeditated trap to get him to drive all the way back, honestly, really and truly. In fact Grit goes so far as to make up an emergency which called her out of the house and possibly, she indicates, might have included a doctor and a fire brigade.

Well, the newly chastised and meek Grit is given a new time to wait in the house and really be there. i.e. between 9 and 5 on the day that I'd planned to take Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to the safari park.

Now Grit, have you learned your lesson?