One man was left bemused as he received a “sorry we missed you” card informing him his parcel was sitting on the roof of his house.

Benjamin Ward returned home on Friday to find card from delivery company MyHermes on his doormat which read: “Today I called to deliver your 1 parcel, it was left: stuck on the roof - sorry.” 

Mr Ward looked up and spied his package was sat lodged 20 feet above the ground in the guttering of his Hove home. 

He took to twitter and posted “Thanks @myhermes for delivering my parcel so its 20ft high stuck to the roof! Great care taken! #Hermes”

The tweet went viral and received nearly 2,500 retweets and 1,100 favourites within the first 24 hours of it being live.

Mr Ward said: “I laughed. It's just ridiculous. I think he must have been trying to lob it over the house.”

The delivery company quickly picked up on the fast-being-shared tweet and apologies profusely, sending the delivery driver back round to Mr Ward's home with a ladder to retrieve the parcel.

MyHermes tweeted: “We have confirmation that your local courier is currently on his way back to your address with a ladder to retrieve your parcel. We would like to apologise once again for the inconvenience this has caused you.” 

As promised the courier returned to Mr Ward's home with a ladder to grab the parcel out from the gutter. 

The marathon-running father said: “They sent him back to get it down with a ladder and say sorry. It was super awkward.

“It was more funny than anything else so I don't really want to make a big deal of it.”

One social media user quipped: “Your parcel delivered within 24 hours, or it's on the house.”

Another added: “Have any of you ever even tried to kick a parcel over a two storey house to land in the back garden?

“However skilled you are, once in a while it is going to hit the ridge tiles and slide into the gutter.“If a national rugby player scored the same success rate with conversions he would get a knighthood.”