Greetings sent from Yorkshire arrive in Portsmouth via Iran
Having celebrated her birthday two weeks earlier Win Hopes was not expecting any more cards.
But when she saw one last card drop through her letterbox she quickly realised why it was so late – it had a Tehran postmark on it.
The grandmother of eight was pleased to get the belated surprise but baffled why it had come via the Iranian capital when it had been sent by her old friend Audrey Flood, who lives in Yorkshire.
The card should have travelled 278 miles and taken a day or two to make the journey.
Instead it had been on a 6,000-mile round trip, lasting 17 days.
Mrs Hopes, 74, from Kimberley Road, Southsea, said: 'My birthday was July 26 and my friend in Yorkshire said she had posted my card on July 23, I couldn't believe it when it arrived two weeks late with a postmark from Tehran.'
Despite her nearly missing out on the home-made greeting card, Mrs Hopes was able to see the funny side.
She said: 'I just laughed about it, I couldn't believe it travelled so far and got here without any damage.'
Friend Mrs Flood worked alongside Mrs Hopes for 20 years in the postal room of Zurich Insurance in Portsmouth before moving north five years ago.
She makes sure she posts her friend a birthday card every year, sending it first class to ensure prompt arrival.
On July 23 she posted the card from a post office in the village of Cranswick, East Yorkshire, never thinking for a second it was about to be directed to the Middle East.
She said: 'I was a bit upset to start with because Win probably thought I had forgotten her birthday, which I have never done in all the years I've known her. It's quite marvellous really that it went all that way and then came back again.'
The Royal Mail has no idea how the letter came to take such a bizarre diversion.
Jaquie Stenson, a Royal Mail spokeswoman, apologised for the delay and added: 'At some point in the system the letter got into the wrong pile of mail and we are unsure where it went from there.
'It's a mystery to us how it would have ended up in Tehran.
'Thankfully, the sorting office in Tehran sent the letter back through the system so it could delivered properly.
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Weather for Portsmouth
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 15 C to 24 C
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