The mystery of the parcel

The mystery of the parcel, or ‘curiouser and curiouser’ or, as my friends said as they saw the contents ‘What the hell is that?!’ What indeed?

But to begin at the beginning. The parcel was delivered on Saturday. I didn’t expect it, certainly hadn’t ordered it and was extremely puzzled as to what it might be and who could possibly have sent it to me.

Was it a leg warmer and if it was, what were you supposed to do with the rest of it, which is too narrow to make a blanket? Here I am modelling it.

Was it perhaps a knitted version of a klu-klux-klan hood? Here I am trying that idea out and suffocating myself in the process.

Was it a mermaid outfit? Had it perhaps been sent by a fan who had read my book Francesca and the Mermaid and enjoyed it? If it was, she was a jolly tall mermaid, for it measures 6ft 8 inches from the beginning of her tail to the top of the cloak/blanket/whatever. They must have thought I was very tall – just look at the length of it spread out on the carpet in my library. Step forward all you ‘body in the library’ fans, Agatha Christie would have known what it is.

But on a more serious note, I’m wondering how on earth it got sent to me and why it arrived without a covering note to explain what it was and to tell me who’d sent it. There was nothing on the parcel itself to give me any clue. I’ve done a certain amount of detective work on it but I haven’t got very far. The courier who delivered it, Yodel, told me it had been given to them by customs,

 

and finally, after a lot of effort, sent me a contact address in Shenzen in China. When I Googled them I discovered that they had an email address @globalegrow.com which turned out to be an e-commerce business, one of which was ‘Sammy Dress’ and when my granddaughter Googled that, lo and behold she found the object itself which the blurb told us was a ‘chic knitted warm fishtail blanket for women’. You could have fooled me!

So this is really a cry for help, is there anyone out there who knows who sent it to me? Or failing that, anyone out there who is 6ft 8 tall and would like a warm fishtail blanket?