I apologize if this has been posted elsewhere .( The Forum is still a bit of a maize to me !)
Does everyone know that we have a very prolonged Postal Workers Strike in the UK ?
It has been occasional days but most of December is affected, 9th , 11, 14,15,23 and 24th. No deliveries then. 
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Thank you for giving the dates. I appreciate it.
The workers in the post office today, told people to post cards etc as normal, even during strikes. As they are in the system, so to speak. In some areas, postboxes are still being emptied, taken to local sorting offices as normal. Though they will only be sorted the day after the strike.
They also said any post you wanted to be posted for Christmas, get it posted as soon as you can.
Hope that helps.
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That’s going to a long time without any post over the holidays if Monday, Dec 26 is considered Christmas, and Tuesday is Boxing Day holiday for workers!
Yes, it was also said that there is a backlog of 1,000,000 ( a million) letters in the system.
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All thanks to D. Cameron and V. Cable, who sold off Royal Mail to their mates at a knock-down price, leaving the (increasingly expensive) mess we have today, a service that has been in visible decline since privatisation around 2014.
The posties have my full support and let this be a warning to other countries where governments suggest privatisation of the mail
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I don’t think Royal Mail should be run as private company…I agree it should be run efficiently but it’s also a national (and international) public service that should be service based rather than profit based
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I am in the UK and have 18 postcards posted by me during the first 2 weeks of December all stuck somewhere in the system. As well as the national strikes there are regional ones. I live in a rural area and we are lucky if we get the post boxes emptied once a week of late.
Our local post mistress told me that the back log is immeasurable and as such only special delivery mail is being prioritised. All well and good but we pay £1.85 to send a card air mail which is probably the most expensive.
So it is not only that we aren’t getting deliveries, our mail isn’t being collected and processed.
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Wow, you must live in the middle of nowhere! Our Mail has been fine , apart from the Strike days. Just don’t post on those days. Other days , deliveries, not as it should be but ok. All post boxes being emptied.
I had a card from Canada postmarked by Canada Post on 3 December arrive today.
A card I sent to the Netherlands on December 1 was only registered yesterday too.
Things do seem to be a bit ropey at the moment.
I had no mail delivered during the week before Christmas. The latest mail was delivered on December 29th with locally posted Christmas cards postmarked December 4th. I reckon there are 30 Christmas cards that I haven’t received by mail by now.
My last postcard to the USA took 53 days. I have a postcard to Finland currently travelling for 49 days and I’ve given up sending postcards to Russia because they never arrive. Patience is the key these days!
You have been really unlucky. My cards to Russia take 35-50 days, one took over 90 days so don’t get disheartened, also a card from Korea recently took 87 days ! They seem even more special when they do arrive. Also , unfortunately, for a number of reasons, a card you’ve sent may not be registered as soon as it arrives- sickness, holidays etc. Patience !
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I wonder if it a regional thing?
I was in the North West area back in September, and only one out of 3 postcards to Russia arrived, and the one that did arrive took 27 days.
Recently postcards to Russia have been travelling between 40 & 60 days.
Within the UK, it’s all over the place, I’ve had 2nd class post from London to Edinburgh arrive the next day, yet, 1st class mail that is only travelling 30 or so miles that was posted before Christmas haven’t arrived yet. 
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The days of daily post delivery have certainly gone where I live …however I keep on Postcrossing!
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Same here, this time last year, the postie would turn up five days a week within a 20 minute window of 11am…
…now I’m (we’re) lucky to get post twice a week in the hours of daylight…
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Its now been revealed parcels are being given priority
After Christmas I received a huge catch up of mail. Until a week ago things weren’t too bad.
Now we have a cyber attack that GCHQ are trying to fix and no international mail going out. From bad to much worse.
The cards on my mantelpiece are mounting awaiting a solution- I hope there is no price change 
before they get to travel as no space on them.
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It’s a shame you’re doing this as the cards will have a very long travelling time on record even before you’ve posted them. Then the postal service will get the blame !
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They are RRs etc already committed to not official cards which I won’t draw until they can be sent. I’m not sure everyone will take this course though.
Postcrossing have been asked to amend so we can draw UK addresses but they seem reluctant.