Holiday cards, scarves knitted by grandma, fragile glass ornaments, cookies shaped like snowmen: They all need to get somewhere by Christmas and unless you have a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer you’ll have to rely on the U.S. Postal Service.” This is certainly a busy time of year for the Postal Service,” said Valerie Hughes, spokesperson for the St. Louis USPS. “In the St Louis area, including Collinsville, the Postal Service processes about a half billion pieces of mail during the holiday season.” In a typical month, the St. Louis regional post office processes 390 million pieces of mail, Hughes said.

To assure all those packages get to where they’re going, Collinsville Postmaster David Garcia said to send mail early.” Right now, it’s not bad,” Garcia said Thursday. “We’re expecting a big rush starting Dec. 17.”Garcia said that those planning to send parcels outside of the area should use priority mail to ensure those gifts arrive by Christmas. With priority mail, a package typically arrives at its destination in two to three days. Garcia said he usually tells people to add a day or two for priority mail this time of year.”

But if they do use priority mail it should get anywhere in the country by Christmas,” he said. Garcia also suggested getting insurance for those valuable gifts” That insures you for any loss or damage on every package that you mail,” he said. “When you stop and think about it, a package that costs $200 you can have insured for $2.45. It’s very reasonable for the amount of assurance that you get.” Insurance for packages valued from $0 to $50 is $1.65, those valued from $50 to $100 can be insured for $2.05 and packages valued from $100 to $200 are insured for $2.45. Insurance can also be purchased for parcels valued over $200.

Less than two days after returning from its winter training trip, the Hillsdale College women’s swimming team was back in action Saturday afternoon vs. GLIAC foe Lewis University. Hillsdale diver Charlotte Wolfe won both events in Saturday’s meet. Improved second-place times were turned in by Anne Verhoef, Cassie Nielsen and Meredith Scott in the meet.

He set up the company in 2005 with Phil Bish and Turkish civil engineer Emsal Yilmaz. Over two years on, and Turkish Homes 4 less has completed three building projects in the eastern Mediterranean areas of Alanya and Belek, and has established offices in Liverpool, Northern Ireland and Turkey. Here is his working day: I wake up in my house in Garston, with a packed suitcase at the end of my bed.

I have just come back from a four-day viewing trip with a group of prospective buyers, and crashed out as soon as I got back from Manchester Airport late last night. No time to relax, though, as I’ve got a busy day ahead of me. I quickly jump in the shower and grab a bit of breakfast before heading to the office, luckily only a short drive away to Aigburth Road. I arrive at the office to be greeted by Mick, who has opened up the shop and made us a cup of tea. I update him on how the trip went and show him the latest pictures of our Panorama Apartment development.

He is planning to re-locate to Turkey himself once his house sale goes through. I have just come off the phone with a customer who bought a holiday home from us a year ago. He would like us to start renting out his property, and wants to know how it all works. I explain to him that the rental market in Turkey is thriving at the moment, thanks to the increasing numbers of sun-seeking tourists, so it won’t be difficult to find tenants for this property.