A LAKE District post office is in the running for a coveted award.

The Ambleside agency has been shortlisted by Post Office Ltd as one of the best in the country.

Postmaster Robin Love and his wife Karen and their staff have run the busy Post Office on the corner of North Road for 17 years.

It provides a host of services from finance, insurance, savings, car tax, passports and currency exchange to handling many thousands of items of mail.

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It has seen its fair share of the bizarre and unusual among parcels for posting, from a life-size sheep to live insects, and from empty fish boxes and a mobile phone that kept ringing to a speaking toy – even an urn with ashes in it.

More conventionally, the post office counter is particularly busy in summer with tourists’ postcards and packages.

But business is brisk the whole year round with online mail order parcels and packages sent out by local businesses.

Mr Love came into the Post Office business from a job in finance, and the couple also run a shop within the post office selling gifts and cards called The Hub, which also has a busy Tourist Information Centre.

Excellent customer service has put it in the running for the award, and this week the Loves will travel to London for an all-expenses paid weekend with an awards dinner and presentation.