I always thought I had a foolproof method of remembering birthdays and anniversaries.

I carefully went through my last year's diary when the new one arrived, transferring my special brand of notation so I could remind myself what I had given as a gift and if I had any special requests gently indicated to me during the year.

This works well, always assuming that you get the all-important transfer of dates correct. The June/July period is always one of great activity in the birthday card area for me.

A large number of my friends seem to have birthdays during that bit of the year and my diary seems to go into overdrive.

But you only need one date to be awry and you are in dead trouble. I am definitely not the flavour of the week with my honorary granddaughter.

I was already on probation over the little matter of the dancing display, which you may recall I missed earlier this year, and now I found to my shame and horror I looked as though I was going to miss out on her birthday.

The trouble was it came at a weekend and I should have consulted my diary earlier than I did. By the time I got around to it I was already too late to ensure her card and present would get there in time.

There was nothing for it but a grovelling phone call, answered by a very sweet voice telling me not to worry about it, she quite understood and she would now have another birthday to look forward to (when I could get my act together, my conscience was whispering in my ear).

My son-in-law had a birthday at roughly the same time and I made sure things were in the post in good time - or I thought I did. My son-in-law is scrupulous about ringing to say thank you and I had no response.

Now I find he has not received his card and present and I shall have to get on to our post office to find out why.

I've noticed post boxes these days do not have the notice which tells you when the next collection is so there may be all sorts of things lurking in our local box.

By now I was getting nervous about the other days indicated in my diary and I made a hasty raid on my nearest shop to top up my usually well-organised card store.

My diary, which by now looked as though it was suffering from measles with all the red dots scattered about various dates, ceased to be the reliable tool to ensure I was up-to-date on important anniversaries.

There was a time when you could post a card today and you knew it would be delivered tomorrow without fail. This, sadly, is no longer the case.

You put your card in the post box, wishing it a fair wind, more in hope than expectation. I am now reorganising the red rash in my diary to ensure I get cards in the post in plenty of time. My granddaughter may forgive me once but I do not wish to push my luck too far.

I have a friend who always manages to get the right card for every occasion. He then adds his own inimitable greetings, which have been known to give his wife a near heart attack as they do not necessarily share the same sense of humour!

I have been known to put the wrong card in the wrong envelope and had to apologise profusely when faced with some mildly acidic remarks about my sense of humour.

It was partly such disasters which led to the decoration of my diary. Thanks to the unreliability of the postal service I must now find another way of reminding myself a birthday is looming and launch my good wishes well ahead of time.

So if you were expecting birthday greetings from me, don't worry. If they are too late for this year they will be wonderfully early for next year. And now, do excuse me - I am off to buy my Christmas cards!