My postman, Rick, is a lovely, slightly odd chap, with a look of a young Richard O’Brien.

One day, it was absolutely chucking it down with rain, and Rick had to pull his van in just outside my house to change a tyre. The rain was coming down in big, thick drops – like chicken eggs, and Rick was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts. Inside half a minute, his shirt had changed from pale to dark blue, and I had just located my umbrella.

As I made my way over to his van, Rick was lying on the road, when suddenly, he looked up with an expression of confused but mild alarm.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“I thought you might be a bit damp,” I offered, holding the umbrella further over him. He looked at me for a while. “Well, you don’t want to catch a cold, do you?”

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“That’s kind,” he said. He barely paused for breath before, “You’re not from round here, are you?”

“No,” I replied. “I’m the weirdo at the end of the road.” (Self-imposed title, I feel I’ve earned it)

“I’m known as the weirdo at the end of my road,” he smiled, “but I live in the middle of the road. What does that mean?”

Rick is a great guy.