Nearly six months ago I entered the ballot for the 2010 London marathon. Those months have gone quite quickly but the last coupe of days have dragged on. A letter is somewhere in the postal system on its way to tell me whether I have a place or not.

For the past few days I diligently waited for the post only to find that the wait isn’t over. The London Marathon, realising that postal strikes in various parts of the country have delayed some of the letters from getting through, have said that on Monday they will send out an email to let all of the 120,000 people who entered the ballot know whether they’ve been lucky (or unlucky depending on your point of view) enough to get one of the 30,000 ish ballot places.

But Monday is two whole days away!