Feline tragedy averted: the ƒtunning ƒaga continues… My father’s duel with the postie, Part II. (If you weren’t aware that this had a Part I, you’d better read it below first so you don’t spoil the ending for yourself.)

Where was I? Oh yes. It all started when I was very young. Or, at least, younger than I am now. One weekend, with much smug muttering, my father sallied forth to move the mailbox. All the way across the driveway, he moved it. That should fix it, surely.

It didn’t. The postie still blithely proceeded to do much as she always had, to the detriment of our nature strip.

Obviously not an adversary to be underestimated. My father took a good think (a few years of it, in fact) before he sallied forth once again.

A stone barrier of some half a metre already guarded one side of the driveway, he reasoned, and the postie didn’t drive all over that, now did she? So out he went, laden with stones, cement and fiendish glee.

Unfortunately he didn’t have enough of all three, and the wall failed to be high enough to present an impediment to the postie’s progress. Anguished wails were heard throughout the land, and my father subsided to gnaw his own liver, waiting for his chance.

And lo, this week it came. Possessing the stones, cement, time and raging need for revenge, my father once again sallied forth, this time to lay a truly prodigious wall. Well, at least it’s a step now. The works came complete with blockading wheelbarrow and sign imprecating all and sundry to beware of the step.

Now we await Monday, to see if finally, after many years of battle, my father will emerge victorious.