The backstory to what I learned: About 2am on a cloudless night a fox was trotting back to its' den after a night out eating whatever foxes eat. As it trotted the twinkling stars began to disappear as the sky began to cloud over. The temperature dropped and a few flakes of snow began to fall. Being a wise old fox it saw a brick and thought to itself "I'll have a s**t on that brick so I don't have to go out in the snow later on". It had a s**t on the brick and trotted off to shelter from the snow that was to fall before dawn. For my part, I awoke to a brilliant snowy day, the world was white with an inch or so of fresh snow everywhere. It was a trudge but picturesque delivering. All morning the snow remained on the streets. On arriving at my final box I was pleased to make use of a handy brick that, although covered in snow, would keep my bundle out of the worst while I filled my bag with yet more bundles. On picking up the bundle from the brick I noted a fermented chicken smell and quickly established that the back letter, elastic bands and all, was coated in snow and fox s**t.
What I learned: Do not try to clean fox turd off a bundle of letters by wiping it across the closest privet hedge. The dictionary includes the word 'flicking' to describe just this process. The second thing I learned is that rather than go down in history as 'the postman who delivers fox s**t on the letters' I would rather walk to a quiet location and thoroughly drag each letter through the snow until soaked and damaged yet clean.
