lesson learnt

I hope you forgive me but this is not going to be an oh-so-happy blog. You see, it is the story of a lost loved one. Would you like to see a picture of my beloved? Here you are:

I can almost hear some of you saying now, "Surely, Laura, you don`t mean to say that this awesome thing of beauty... which must be, by the way, at least 25x35 centimetres in size... got lost somehow???" The answer, my friends, is: yes (sorry if you expected something more climactic - although I almost wrote "climatic" here just now which would`ve been rather silly).
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, the poppies...
I started this picture (dimensions: see above) almost two years ago but to give it its due, it didn`t take that long to finish, it just almost became a UFO [for non-stitchers: UnFinished Object] somewhere down the line, until I picked it up again last August when I stopped smoking and I relished this big challenge that kept my hands occupied for hours. Actually, I got on so well with it that by the end of September I could see the end of the tunnel and decided to send it back to Hungary for my granny as a Christmas present. But (and again, I can almost see some of you gape in horror) I never thought of sending it with registered post. Cue my ranting concerning the postal service:
For you see, one never really sets out thinking, "Ooh, I`d better make sure we can track this parcel somehow in case it gets lost or stolen" - why would it, right? When I post, say, a letter, I expect everybody along the line to do their job properly until my letter reaches its destination at the other end. OK, I`m aware, of course, that things might go wrong, accidents do happen, etc., etc. but to be honest, I had such a rigmarole with the framing and the wrapping (I also sent some stuff for my uncle and my parents and by the third time I had to repack my parcels, I felt like I should maybe move in the post office to save me from shuffling home with my ever-increasing number of packages every time). Because, and I don`t think I`m alone with this, one always tries to be as economical as possible, thus my one big parcel first divided itself into two, and eventually I posted my little prezzies in 3 smallish packages - obviously, by this stage it never even occured to me that whatever I saved on this redistribution of towels and cross stitch pictures, I should spend on registering my three parcels. And would you believe it? ALL THREE GOT LOST!
So to finish my ranting, for which I profusely apologise, here`s my rhetoric question to all the dishonest postal workers in the world: when you decide to risk your job and open somebody else`s mail in the hope of a few pennies, do you ever stop and think about the people you rob? Did the postman who opened my parcel wondered how many months someone must have worked on this picture? Did he take it home and hung it on his wall with a clear conscience? Or, if that would have been too much for him, did he instead just chuck it in the bin? Did the same thing happen to my cross stitched Mothers` Day cards a couple of years ago? "Oh, nice thick padded envelopes, there must be some money in these... let`s see... hm, nothing, just a bunch of stitched flowers... drat!" Is this really the way forward that in future I shouldn`t send anything valuable - valuable to me, at least - without registered post? How sad is that...