The case of the tipsy planner
Feb. 19th, 2026 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseMy Lent devotional did, in fact, arrive yesterday, about an hour after I posted the entry about it. It turned out that the substitute postal worker had, indeed, delivered it to my house number. Just... not my actual flat. He'd delivered it to the same number on another street on the other side of town altogether, and the lady who lived there very kindly came and brought it round, which I thought was above and beyond. (The two street names did begin with the same letter, but all resemblance ended there; the first words were not similar in any other respect, not even general shape, and I live on ---- Way, while the lady to whom it had been delivered lives on ***** Drive.)
The whole business reminded me very much of something that happened about six months after I moved here. At that point, the place was so new it was very hard to find any maps that included it; there are people in this town who have been here longer than I have, but not so many. Now, as I explained yesterday, this little block contains the odd numbers n to n + 10 inclusive; and one day I came home in the scooter to find that someone had left a parcel for number n - 2, which, by all rights, ought to be next door. I thought, "oh, I'll just take it round now," so I stuck the parcel in the basket on the front and went looking for this place.
Our street is, to be fair, a bit odd. It is a street of two unequal sections. The longer one runs alongside an open area (there is a building on it, but I'm not sure what its official street address is); if you're coming up it towards my flat, the open area is on your left and the even numbers from 2 to about 60 are on your right. There are a lot of numbers because some of them are flats, like this building. Then you get to a roundabout, and our street continues on the other side of it. I am in this shorter section, which finishes where it meets another street at the top; this section has (low) odd numbers on one side, and much higher even numbers on the other. We'll say for convenience that I live at number 19 and I was looking for number 15, which is not the case, but it means I don't have to keep typing n all the time.
Anyway, I went all up and down this street and there was no sign of number 15. I was befogged. As far as I could see, the odd numbers started at 17 [equivalent], and nothing lower than that even existed. I tried looking for a map but drew a blank; fortunately, however, it was a Tuesday, which was the night some good friends of mine had a board games evening. I attended that for quite a while until Sibyl started getting stroppy in the evenings as a regular thing (previously she was more likely to do it in the afternoon). So I went round there and asked if they knew how to find number 15, since they are among the few people who've been here longer than I have.
They didn't, but they were able to find a map with the information. Let's just say no wonder I couldn't find it. To get to number 15 from my flat, you need to turn right at the roundabout, then turn right again down a lane, and that brings you into a car park (larger than ours, but then there are more flats). Facing the car park is a medium-sized block of flats, which does, admittedly, back on to our street, but since there is no direct entrance to it from our street it makes no sense to me that it should have our street address. And yet it does.
I went round there on my way home, figuring it wasn't too late and the resident would probably still be up. He was. I delivered his parcel, and he was greatly relieved; it turned out to be his new contact lenses, and he'd have been stuck if they'd been delayed for much longer.
Ironically, the street where my friends with the board games evening live is even worse. I remain convinced that whoever was in charge of numbering that one was either as drunk as a lord or simply threw all the numbers out of a hat, because the system as a whole makes no sense; it's one of those streets with multiple branches which are all called the same thing, and the numbering within any given branch makes sense, but the way the branches fit together as a whole makes none at all. To be completely fair to delivery staff, I have to say this town is a nightmare.
Even so. "---- Way" still doesn't look remotely like "***** Drive"...
The whole business reminded me very much of something that happened about six months after I moved here. At that point, the place was so new it was very hard to find any maps that included it; there are people in this town who have been here longer than I have, but not so many. Now, as I explained yesterday, this little block contains the odd numbers n to n + 10 inclusive; and one day I came home in the scooter to find that someone had left a parcel for number n - 2, which, by all rights, ought to be next door. I thought, "oh, I'll just take it round now," so I stuck the parcel in the basket on the front and went looking for this place.
Our street is, to be fair, a bit odd. It is a street of two unequal sections. The longer one runs alongside an open area (there is a building on it, but I'm not sure what its official street address is); if you're coming up it towards my flat, the open area is on your left and the even numbers from 2 to about 60 are on your right. There are a lot of numbers because some of them are flats, like this building. Then you get to a roundabout, and our street continues on the other side of it. I am in this shorter section, which finishes where it meets another street at the top; this section has (low) odd numbers on one side, and much higher even numbers on the other. We'll say for convenience that I live at number 19 and I was looking for number 15, which is not the case, but it means I don't have to keep typing n all the time.
Anyway, I went all up and down this street and there was no sign of number 15. I was befogged. As far as I could see, the odd numbers started at 17 [equivalent], and nothing lower than that even existed. I tried looking for a map but drew a blank; fortunately, however, it was a Tuesday, which was the night some good friends of mine had a board games evening. I attended that for quite a while until Sibyl started getting stroppy in the evenings as a regular thing (previously she was more likely to do it in the afternoon). So I went round there and asked if they knew how to find number 15, since they are among the few people who've been here longer than I have.
They didn't, but they were able to find a map with the information. Let's just say no wonder I couldn't find it. To get to number 15 from my flat, you need to turn right at the roundabout, then turn right again down a lane, and that brings you into a car park (larger than ours, but then there are more flats). Facing the car park is a medium-sized block of flats, which does, admittedly, back on to our street, but since there is no direct entrance to it from our street it makes no sense to me that it should have our street address. And yet it does.
I went round there on my way home, figuring it wasn't too late and the resident would probably still be up. He was. I delivered his parcel, and he was greatly relieved; it turned out to be his new contact lenses, and he'd have been stuck if they'd been delayed for much longer.
Ironically, the street where my friends with the board games evening live is even worse. I remain convinced that whoever was in charge of numbering that one was either as drunk as a lord or simply threw all the numbers out of a hat, because the system as a whole makes no sense; it's one of those streets with multiple branches which are all called the same thing, and the numbering within any given branch makes sense, but the way the branches fit together as a whole makes none at all. To be completely fair to delivery staff, I have to say this town is a nightmare.
Even so. "---- Way" still doesn't look remotely like "***** Drive"...
