Ireland will be reunified – by the Post Office. They have yet again told me here in England that a parcel to Belfast is going to the “Republic of Ireland”.

You work 4 night shifts editing the UK news, manage finally to get to a post office just before closing, and they departitioned Ireland while you were sleeping. The scoop you missed.

You are asked why you did not give your full name on the parcel as the sender and you try to explain it’s because it’s going to Belfast and names can still cause trouble over there because of sectarianism. You realise this person does not know what “the Troubles” were, so you say it’s “kinda like Kashmir” and they look at you like you’re a fool, bless you, though you are pretty sure they know what Kashmir means.

At least the Post Office have now heard of Belfast.

I write this a couple of weeks after a holiday in Spain where I sent a parcel to people in Germany in order to finally get around UK-EU customs tariffs.

It was sent from a rundown part of Palma de Mallorca which had wow, an actual, fully staffed, beautifully branded and maintained post office, not a hybrid corner shop like back in England. Okay the parcel took 9 days to cross the Pyrenees but the mule reached Berlin in the end, contents fully intact, pack of fragile M&S apple pies included.

I live in hope my Belfast parcel doesn’t end up on a sorting slab in Cork.