Beauty is, of course, in the eye of the beholder and I am thus beholden to the Universe who assisted me to embrace the day as it unravelled, starting with the news that a consignment of books on its way to me had been misdelivered, and what did I want the sender to do about it.  Well, I said, either send me another consignment before Friday, or send whoever says they delivered the parcel to wherever they said they delivered it, to whoever they said signed for it, and to redeliver to where they should have delivered in the first place.

I later got a call that the mis-deliverer had retrieved the delivery and redelivered.  The sender told me they had done a good job.  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘a good job of crisis management, avoidable of course by delivering to the right address in the first place.  Perhaps,’ I added, ‘they are good at crisis management because they get lots of practice.’

That was mean, wasn’t it, and I got my comeuppance a moment later with a message that my instruction to deliver a book to a customer abroad turned out to be for a book different from what the customer had ordered.  The subsequent deluge of emails, phone calls, texts and whatsapps gave me my own opportunity for crisis management!

Of course one can soar above these things…