My local Post Office confirmed that a lot of mail is going by sea these days. She did say that there was a shortage of ships! I wonder if that is because so many crew are ill or the cargo space is full due to other freight that would usually go by air.
I am still waiting for majority of my unofficial WPD postcards to arrive OS that I sent 2 weeks before 1 Oct. I have had a couple of officials sent on 1 Oct arrive though, but travel times are over 30 days, whereas previously the average was 21 ish days.
If they send our postcards via sea, then they should decrease the postage. And delete the “Air mail” logo on Maxicard.
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I find that my address is also given out in batches. So far, I have received 23 cards that were ‘sent’ on 5th November. On that date, I only had one more card sent than received … although I did have 62 travelling because they travel so slowly.
When I register them all, I then have to wait weeks (sometimes more than a month) before anything arrives again. And then all sent on the same day again. Frustrating.
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… and still they come … 40 cards so far where my address was given out on 5th November. And so many expired cards - travelling in that 90-150 period.
I guess that it will only get worse as the pandemic ploughs on.
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Forty cards, that’s amazing. I remember once figuring out my address was given out more than 15 times in about 24 hours even though my max to send at the time was less than 10, I guess maybe that scales up as your max increases?
But it does kind of take the surprise out of it if you know you’ll get a ton all in one go and then nothing for ages. My stats graph is pretty stable for sent cards but my received graph is like a wave with big ups and downs.
That’s my excuse for going nuts on the forum, I have to even out the gaps. 
I found an old thread where there’s lots of discussion about your address being given out in batches and some people tried going inactive to minimise this. I don’t know if it proved effective or not, but it sounded like a lot of work to me anyway so I didn’t bother following up 
I feel like I’m a whinger …
Delivery today. Unusual to have delivery on Saturday, but there hasn’t been a lot of action by AP this week. 17 cards in this batch. Nine of them were sent on 5th November taking that total to 49.
I’ve spent the better part of the morning registering them. It’s hard to be enthusiastic and to make a connection with people if it takes hours to register. I send one card a day in the hope that I’ll receive one card a day …
Now my received are 24 more than sent.
What was I going to do with my Saturday?
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Oh registering that many in one go is… a lot. Sucks the joy out of it. I’d be inclined to leave them in a pile and tackle a few a day, or whatever I was up for at the time.
I wonder if the logic of the algorithm is, give the address in one go and everyone’s different postal systems will spread them out. But then since there’s such limited incoming to Australia it all gets backed up and delivered in one go anyway? Just a theory.
Your postie must think you’re a celebrity as they drop off 17 postcards in one day 
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They probably arrive on the same flight
I had a nice chat with postie when he came to do the door last week with my order. I asked why he was still delivering mail daily since the Christmas rush had finished. He said they had now gone back to the old system as the new system introduced during Covid -supposedly for safety but basically just an excuse to cut staff, was no longer working. Surprise, surpise. I hadn’t seen it on the news or anything, so they APost didn’t say it too loudly. He said its busier now than before Covid and they are hiring more staff. Both the posties and the public are happy. We like our mail every weekday and they get a lot more done on the bikes than trundling around in an overloaded cart. Carts are still available if needed. Then there is staff available to drive around in the vans delivery parcels. Common sense you would have thought
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Our posties still use carts as they also hold a lot of small parcels to take the load off delivery vans (and she can putter along listening to audio books), but yes, I had noticed that mail was now mostly daily again. That was kept quiet!
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Ok, please excuse a bit of an extended quarantine induced rant, but my lack of postcards last week put me in a mood… 
I play a bit of tag here on the forum to try to keep my mailbox from being empty for weeks at a time but last week even that failed me.
Does anyone else get the impression that mail just isn’t delivered on rainy days?
And here we are on an overcast Monday so maybe this quarantine week 2 will be more of the same 
I’m finally back to only one less sent than received so I guess I can expect May to be another extreme peak month
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I’m only seeing this just now Amanda. I’m sorry you were having a sparse few weeks, mail-wise. I haven’t considered the rainy day factor. My post goes to the PO Box…so it’s not like there’s a postie biking it around the suburbs. I guess during deluges and extreme weather events (especially if storms are forecast) they may prevent the bike and trike posties going out…?? It would make sense.
My postbox has been very quiet lately. I’ve slowed right down on the forum postcards and so am just waiting for my officials to be registered and as we all know, that takes forever and ever and ever. 
I’ve just written a postcard for a bingo congrats and after putting it all together am just noticing that the postcard…which is square…exceeds one of the given Oz Post dimensions by 1 cm. But then it’s about 10 cm under the maximum in the other dimension. I’d never noticed these restrictions on postcard size before. And I have sent this size and shape card on three previous occasions…and they all got through (albeit to different countries).
I think I’ll have to send this one, as is, and hope for the best. I can always send another card if it fails to arrive…annoying as that will be.
I hope your mail rate has improved, and that you are free of quarantine! 
I got a new sticker recently.
I received a standard envelope with a few cards in it from a member who was destashing. It had been opened and resealed with this sticker.
I wonder if it appeared dodgy, just a random check or an election gimmick. I’ve never had an envelope opened before 
Hmm, I wonder why they would be prompted to open an envelope of cards. I had an envelope for an official card sealed like that recently, but there was a teabag in it so I wasn’t so surprised. The more ridiculous thing was they opened and then resealed the teabag packet as well…! 
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I got one of those too, but the envelope contained a feather (!) so I’m not surprised
Mine says MGF where you have SGF. I wonder what the difference is. Melbourne/Sydney or something? 
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That’s hilarious! At that point it’s like “why are you giving this back to me?”
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I think you are onto something there missmelbourne. My envelope was stamped SWLF - the Sydney letter facility. 
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There we go! And I’ve just learnt that the GF in MGF/SGF is gateway facility.
I wonder if it’s just Melbourne and Sydney or whether there are other gateway facilities? Time to try and collect the set 
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