In our increasingly connected world, physical post has become much less used and less important but there are still times of year when we all like to receive physical post – especially birthdays and Christmas. And when one is away from home, post becomes even more important (as anyone who boarded at school, travelled for months or lived away from family and friends for years will already know). There’s something about the effort taken to write a physical letter or card and send it, which is better than an email or message, and of course you can display an actual card or postcard and enjoy it for a considerable time.

So having established that physical post is a good thing, how does it get to the Falklands? I have to own up and say I’m pretty sure about what happens from the UK, but am less sure about the rest of the world. UK post comes with the RAF – in theory there are two flights a week and in theory they can all carry mail. In practice not every scheduled flight flies, mainly due to the dreaded rotor winds (I’ll explain another time) or due to a forecast gale or due to RAF operational priorities. Even if the flight does come there’s probably a limit to how much mail it will bring on top of all the other supplies it is transporting.

When all goes well mail can make it in about 10 days to 2 weeks from the UK to the Falklands or vice versa, however Christmas is a pressure point with more mail than usual (and the last day for posting North to arrive for Christmas was 1st December, which I didn’t entirely meet…) and of course this year strikes in the UK have also slowed things down. Which is a long winded way of saying that very little Christmas post arrived in the Islands this year and that those of you to whom I sent Christmas cards might have to see them as Happy New Year cards!

Once the mail has arrived it does not get delivered to houses, since there is no postal service. It does go to the Post Office in the centre of town and is put into PO boxes.

You can have an individual one but most people have theirs delivered to their workplace PO box. So it doesn’t matter if you address post to me at my house, or at the office, or Sarah Stannard, Falkland Islands – it all ends up in the same PO box, waiting for one of the office team to come and collect it one afternoon.

So, if you did send me something for Christmas, its arrival will make for a cheerful afternoon sometime in January (fingers crossed!)