ONLY one guess: Did any residents of the areas covered by 50 post offices threatened by closures in York, and North and East Yorkshire, receive this delightful Christmas card?
Not likely. The idyllic acrylic was sent out as a formal Yuletide card by the Royal Mail, and features a postman collecting mail from a box outside a rural post office in a snow-clad village framed by mountains.
Even the stray cattle seem impressed that the rural post office in that wintry place should be still standing, a rare survivor of Royal Mail cuts So where is it?
Was it Bear's Den, to the north of Glasgow, the home village of the cheery artist, postman-driver David Tyrrell?
"No, it was entirely my imagination," said David. "Our own little post office here has been closed. Terrible, isn't it?"
David, 52, quipped: "The more little post offices that are closed, the more I will have to rely on my imagination when painting them, and perhaps their rarity will put my prices up!"
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Meanwhile, The Press, in its campaign to prevent the closures, has been determined to put the public in the picture and has won the official backing not only of the City of York Council, but also every MP in the region.
That includes Hugh Bayley, MP for York, John Grogan, MP for Selby, Phil Willis, Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate, Ryedale MP John Greenway; and more recently, the shadow minister for the environment, Anne McIntosh, MP for the Vale of York.
There is nothing idyllic about the picture that they all paint - of whole communities disrupted and old people, in particular, feeling abandoned by the logic of the ledger book.
Is there no sentimentality left? Ask David.
He said: "My wife, Allyson, and I spent our honeymoon in York 27 years ago. I would like to think there are some post offices left there to paint by the end of 2008."
Joke on same page:
