I hate queuing and shopping so much I've taken to doing much of it online – it seems I'm not alone.

So I had to laugh at the irony as I queued at my local Royal Mail sorting office for the fourth time in as many weeks this week, waiting to collect yet another missed parcel.

My strategy was fine in 1999 when I began ordering CDs from America but these days it seems online shopping only delays your queuing experience from the point of sale to the point of delivery.

The dreary building on a grubby industrial estate only has an office big enough for about four people to wait for their packages to be found so since the first week of December, queues of shivering internet shoppers, grasping their red and white missed delivery postcards like invitations to Will and Kate's wedding, have been snaking out of the collections office into the car park, getting in the way of the hard working postmen's vans.

You'd think amid these austere times the clamour for internet shopping would have died down by now, but no.

Twice this week I have driven to the premises to get my online bargains and twice I have kept driving at the sight of yet another queue of people waiting for a much coveted spot in that tiny office.

Finally on Wednesday there was only one person waiting in the cold so I parked up and joined the queue.

Ten minutes felt like a lifetime and then with just two more people between me and my new parcel my hopes of being put out of my misery were crushed when one man's elusive packet sucked up more than five minutes of searching time alone.

As the sighs became more audible and people rolled their eyes at each other the apologetic Post Office employee returned empty handed ready for his ear-bashing from the understandably frustrated customer.

As I moved to the front of the queue I noted the sign warning customers not to threaten staff and braced myself for disappointment.

Thankfully my packet was found in seconds and I sloped away from the soul destroying void dodging the envious gazes of other Amazon.co.uk addicts.

But moments later my glee at finally getting one over the man turned to disappointment as I discovered my 'amazing sales deal', a shirt reduced from £50 to £17.50, was too small.

I now have to queue to return it via Royal Mail and immerse myself among other sentient beings to find a new one.

Think I'll wait until the sales are over.