Excuse me while I choke on a rather large slice of humble pie," I told my editor. "And no, the book reviews you asked me to do aren't finished yet."

The reason being that the books had failed to arrive the day after the editor said she'd send them to me, so I couldn't read them and therefore couldn't review them, which is a pretty cast iron excuse, from my book of excuses, and also happens to be true - partly true anyway.

Technically, I suppose the books did arrive the day after the editor sent them to me, at least one of them did, it just went away again, in the arms of the postman, who, instead of pressing our very loud but slightly stiff doorbell hard so we heard it and answered the door, gave it only a half-hearted nudge, before filling out a card telling me there was a package too big to fit through the letterbox.

Although I didn't hear the doorbell, I heard the click of the letterbox when he put the card through.

As I opened the door, I saw postman hot-footing it away but, as I was still in dressing gown, was unable to hot-foot it after him. Instead, I phoned the post office and asked if they could redeliver and ask hot-footed postman to press doorbell hard.

The next day the same thing happened again. I was sitting in the kitchen, eating breakfast, when I heard the letterbox click and found the card telling me the big package had been and gone again.

Again, called post office, arranged redelivery, got up early, got dressed and put on trainers so I could pursue hot-footed postman if necessary, unlocked door and waited.

Again, no buzz but a click. This time was able to spring from chair, fling door open and catch postman skipping down the steps with my book.

"Is that a parcel for me?" I said, skipping after him and managed to catch up in time for him to hand it over.

Slightly annoyed that again he hadn't rung the doorbell, I turned and pressed it hard to check that it was indeed working, which it was. The buzz is of the type that makes you jump six feet and land with a new hairstyle.

I demonstrated this to hot-foot, while muttering something along the lines of: "Look, you just need to press it a bit harder and the whole street will come to the door."

Hot-foot smiled pleasantly and nodded before muttering something unintelligible and pointing to his ear.

Hot foot, it appears is totally deaf, and had been diligently pressing the doorbell, as instructed, but couldn't tell if he was pressing it hard enough as he is the only person in the vicinity who can't hear the very loud buzz.

Embarrassed, even more so by the fact that Rugrats' friends' right-on parents were walking past and caught me berating deaf postman, I slunk back into the house and opened parcel, which contained one of the books I was supposed to review.

I was in the midst of reading it when I nearly jumped out of my skin when the doorbell rang.

Postman handed me a parcel and I mimed thank you and jumping out of my skin, when bell rang, and pressing the doorbell hard and thank you again for pressing the doorbell so hard.

Deaf postman would no doubt have been pleased with my efforts to atone for shouting at him earlier, had he been the deaf postman.

Obviously to me all postman look alike (perhaps it is the uniform or just the fact I don't look at them properly) but this one was obviously not the last one, as he gave me a very odd look and muttered something about the "bloody loud doorbell," before hot-footing it off down the street. They all run fast - from my house anyway ...