RTE’s Joe Duffy was left in hysterics after a listener called in to tell him how a Christmas pudding he made for a friend in Cavan ended up all the way over in Canada.
Billy Doran said his “class, number one” pudding he makes for some friends and family ended up flying to Canada instead of to his friend Rosie who lives in Ballyjamesduff in Co. Cavan.
He said: “Well, I’ll tell you what happened. Well, I went up to the post office there in Ringsend, and the woman gave me a standard box, you know, a road travel for the 26 counties. It cost me €9, and I put the pudding in it and a little note telling her use it now and I’ll send another one at Christmas.
“But anyway I says to her, I rang Rosie and says I, the girl told me it will be down there Friday.
“Now I put that In on the 29th of September, but she was after buying custard and that, she was going to pour over the pudding whatever.
“So, what happened then was nothing happened, and she rang me back and said the postman hadn't arrived, you know.
“So I says ah well, we’ll leave it to Monday and see what happens. So he never arrived on the Monday or the Tuesday, and I got me daughter to track it, you know you have the tracking thing from the PO, and when she tracked it, I nearly fell out of me standings.
“It went down to the sorting office, I think it’s in Portlaoise, it was sent from there to Dublin airport, from Dublin airport it was flown to Heathrow airport, and from Heathrow airport, it was flown to Canada, and some fella in Ontario got it.
“He was on the Facebook, and he was letting me daughter know and was trying to find out about the pudding.
“So we got through to him eventually, and we were trying to explain to him, and he says a relative of some sort had sent him a letter or a Christmas card, and it stuck onto my parcel, you see, it stuck on to the parcel with the pudding in it and whatever happened it was delivered to his door in Ontario in Canada.”
Billy then explained how the man in Canada didn’t know what to do with the pudding as the Canadian postal service couldn’t take it back.
He said: “Well, I told him, he was wondering what he’d do with the pudding.
“See your man delivered it to his door, and you see the card was stuck over Rosie’s address in Cavan, and he thought it was for him, and he took the box in and when he realised it wasn't for him, he rang the post office in Canada, whoever they are, and they says ‘well we can’t take it back because you signed for it’ so he asked me what would he do with the pudding and I said ‘well you may as well eat it instead of it coming back through Heathrow and Dublin airport and you know the whole trip back again.”
