I have been lucky enough to have been able to live in this beautiful country for the last couple of years and have sort of developed that same ‘shrug of the shoulders’ that says ‘its Croatia’ that the local folk seems to say when things are not quite what you expect from the administration of the country.
I also have a lot of time on my hands to think about the important things in our daily lives such as why there are no ‘cats eyes’ on the local roads near me, or why can banks charge you a fee for taking money out of your own account over the counter?
But my reason for stepping onto my soapbox today is about our postal service. I’m a little old-fashioned and like to still send and receive a handwritten letter from my family and friends in dear old blighty. I like nothing more than to tell them how hot it is in sunny Croatia or the fact that a beer is only a couple of quid. I like to sit at one of our numerous cafes write a few letters and watch the world pass me by. Each week I post them off and await a reply. When I first arrived in Croatia it seemed that letters were taking a couple of weeks to arrive either way, which seemed a bit extreme to me bearing in mind we are only a couple of hours away by plane, then, of course, Covid came along and understandably the post delays became longer and longer so much so that my fellow letter writers and I abandoned posting letters and used instead the new-fangled electronic mail thingy for most of last year.
As we started 2021 the postal services across the world appeared to have mostly got back on track in terms of deliveries etc, but maybe not quite in Croatia. I first noticed when I ordered a paperback book in November (it was a Christmas present to myself), with delivery expected in a couple of weeks. When nothing appeared I contacted the supplier who tracked the delivery and said it was in Zagreb, where it seems it still is several months later.
I send regular letters over to the UK and a pal who I share correspondence with regularly always tells me when my posted letter arrives via email, and we noticed that a simple letter would arrive after a couple of weeks or in one case a letter posted on 5th February arrived after a letter posted on the 11th February. More recently my same pal sent me three letters from the UK posted on the 7th the 14th and 18th May; all three arrived on the same day (27th May).
Now I’m not saying that the Croatian postal service has marked me out for any reason, if they have I don’t know why that would be, as I try to keep them profitable as much as I can, I am always nice to the counter staff, I accept having a silly Englishman bothering you at work several times a week will not give you much job satisfaction, I don’t complain (mainly because I don’t know who to complain to and Croatian friends tell me it is a waste of time anyway), but perhaps if nothing else the postal service could at times remember that it is a service that many of us still rely on for many reasons. For me just receiving a simple letter in good time would be enough to make me a happy man.
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