September round-up

Tomorrow is World Postcard Day, a celebration for the anniversary of the postcard. This year’s theme from Postcrossing for it is Postal Hugs. A lovely thought as a postcard can feel like a hug from a stranger. I am a Postcrosser but due to postage costs, am not as active as I used to be. Postage then was 50p to Europe but now that rate is £2.20. I will still send a few postcards now and again, and will write some tomorrow. 

Postcard designed by Christina Liew Jia Hui

Nowadays, I prefer to send letters, and getting to know strangers around the world. I am generally not looking for new penpals but sometimes it is hard to say no to a quality letter. A letter I am partway through replying to was written in August but for InCoWriMo (life got in the way sometime during February for the correspondent). 

3 stamp combination for postage from 2nd October

For the first rate of international postage, Monday will feel somewhat like a postage rate decrease, because the domestic first class stamp price will increase from £1,10 to £1.25. I have used mostly first class stamps, the current rate of airmail being 2 x 1st, but that will overpay on Monday. Domestic mail, what with all the woes Royal Mail have, especially overwhelmed with parcels they neglect to deliver letters daily quite often, I will be using 2nd class mostly - this remains at 75p (for now!). I know that Covid is doing the rounds again, and some posties call in sick, but there’s no cover available to do those rounds. 

Some stamps issued September 2023

September saw 2 stamp issues, one celebrating Paddington, and the other Dame Shirley Bassey. I wasn’t intending to buy that many Paddington stamps, but in the end, I bought a few, ahead of the price rise. Next up will be a stamp issue celebrating Harry Potter (yet again). All first class stamps. I will buy a few stamps, but not as many, perhaps, due to the price rise. The stamps are all 1st class. 

Today is also the last day of Stampex, a stamp exhibition in London. I have never attended, but have seen pictures and heard stories. I’ve imagined it to have been a grand affair, with stamp dealers selling old stamps, auction houses promoting upcoming sales, and Royal Mail selling modern stamps. However, the latter hasn’t happened this year because Royal Mail, in their wisdom (or lack of it), have not attended this year. A shame, not only because there are still some people collecting modern Royal Mail offerings, but also because there was a Postcrossing meet up with many postcards being written & signed needing postage to be sent on their way. 

Elsewhere, I find it a little sad someone with a stamp collection has never actually used a stamp, and has no interest at all in correcting that. Still, there are some people out there who will use stamps. I guess many of the postal authorities will have stamps for sale on their websites, and offer a decent choice of stamps available to use for postage. Surely there is at least one “adequate” issue they would be happy to use for postage… I know I buy more stamps from the issues I really like, and not so many of issues I’m not keen on. 

My Postcrossing anniversary

Earlier this month, I celebrated my Postcrossing anniversary. I hadn't sent any Postcrossing postcards out this year, so thought I should request a few addresses on my anniversary. I was not disappointed with who the system paired me up with. I went down a rabbit hole of looking up the writres mentioned on a couple of the profiles, out of curiosity leaving me with books to add to my wish-list. At least one of the writers is one I hope to mention in a future blog post. 

I had somewhat forgotten how much space (or lack of space) there is on a postcard for the postage. Lucky that the postage rate for international airmail is also 2 x 1st class, so I have a wealth of choice for making up the postage. 

Where possible, I try to match the stamps to the interests mentioned on the profile. Sometimes, it takes me longer to choose the postage than it is to write the postcard. 

I am still very fond of Postcrossing, but the postage rate to send just a mere postcard overseas does seem to be a bit on the extortionate side. What else can I get for that price? A cup of dishwater one coffee chain purports to be tea costs more, and isn't as nice as the feeling you get when you get the Hurrah email from Postcrossing informing you a postcard has arrived, plus the recipient's message! 

Stamp collecting/using isn't just an old person's hobby

 Last week, there was a virtual stamp exhibition, Stampex, held over 3 days online. There were talks conducted over Zoom, and recorded. There were virtual booths with different dealers and auction houses, as well as those involved in promoting philately and/or educational videos on stamps/post. You could enter a booth and chat to the booth representatives or even the other visitors. Great fun. Topics included old stamps, forgeries even, plus newer stamps such as the recent Legend of King Arthur stamps issued by Royal Mail, and the upcoming Espresso stamps to be issued by the United States Postal Service (USPS). Materials of stamps was also mentioned, such as lace, fish, or even toilet paper (the Austrian postal service is to blame for two of them, and the Faroe Islands postal service for the fish). I was lucky to receive a Postcrossing postcard with this stamp from Thailand on for postage a few years ago. 

There were also exhibits, on mostly historical stamps. However, children took part in exhibits for their favourite things, and I must say these were rather impressive, on topics from space to golf to bears to hedgehogs. 

However, while leafing through a newspaper on Saturday, I came across advertisements: a checklist for retirement planning. I don't know how appreciative Guernsey Post and Stanley Gibbons are for being adverts either side of incontinence products! Yes, while retired people might have more time and money to spend on philately, children may be able to spend pocket money on packets of stamps bundled by Stanley Gibbons or WHSmiths, or perhaps in charity shops (I've found them in some Oxfam, RNLI and animal charity shops). 

On the other side, I've heard that stamp collecting is only for children, alongside having penpals. 

A to Z of Snail Mail, part 2

 N is for Notecards, notelets for nice correspondence.

O is for Outgoing mail, missives sent on their way. Once they arrive, they'll need an object to open the envelope(s)

P is for Postbox, fed with Postcrossing Postcards with nice Postage stamps on perhaps bought from a Post Office, the missives written in pen or even pencil allowed. Paper, penpals, penfriends, post, postie perhaps a Postman Pat...

Q is for Quarto sized paper for writing quality missives to penfriends, written in Quink ink with a quill while having a quiet moment, before wrapping it up and standing in the queue at a post office counter (because you want to use the new issue of stamps out that day).

R is for Replies to letters, and for Royal Mail as I'm in the UK! 

S is for Stamps for postage making stationery not stationary. 

T is for Tape, decorative or otherwise. I use tape to help seal up letters.

U is for Universal Postal Union (UPU), and for those in the US, there's the USPS. 

V is for Valentine's cards, as some are sent in friendship.

W is for Wax seals

X is for letters sealed with a kiss. XXX

Y is for Yours in Friendship, as a way of signing off a letter. Yours, Your Friend.....

Z is for Zip code, without one, letters to the US wouldn't get there! 

Happy new year.

Well, farewell 2020 and hello 2021. 

One of the surprising things about the pandemic is how much more I have enjoyed writing letters. I do my best communicating through the written word. Letters are something to hold. They can also hug. Electronic missives and perhaps phone calls demand to be dealt with there and then. A letter is patient; it has to be. 

One question I get asked is, "Where do I find people to write to?" There are many websites out there offering penpal-matching, or profile browsing, to find penpals, for free or paid. There are websites associated with snail mail projects where you can also look for penfriends. Some of my lovely penpals have come from barely having anything more than an address to write to, through a project called InCoWriMo. I've written about INternational COrrespondence WRIting MOnth before. But it is almost that time of year again, for this project fills February with letters. The challenge is to write a letter a day. https://incowrimo.org/

Another question I get asked is, "What do I write about in letters?" While some topics can be a bit of a taboo or more uncomfortable to write about (e.g. religion, politics, the private side of life), almost anything else goes. Postcrossing has a monthly writing prompt, if you are stuck for something to write about on a postcard (this month, what skill would you like to learn?). A World of Snail Mail offers another suggestion: Five Questions, Answer by Snail Mail where questioners supply 5 Questions, and people can write their answers in a missive. 

A World of Snail Mail has come up with something else if you want to take part in Incowrimo but can't manage a whole letter-a-day to send? Maybe you could compromise and do this challenge instead. It doesn't matter if you can't do it every day. The main thing is to enjoy writing letters.

28 challenges for this month, one for each day. When writing a letter, please answer the question or use the writing prompt or do the task for that day. The letter need not be finished that day.

1st: Write a sentence with your eyes closed
2nd: Do you have any pictures hanging on your wall(s)?
3rd: Writing prompt: time
4th: Doodle the weather
5th: What are you looking forward to this year?
6th: What are the best 3 things about where you live?
7th: Writing prompt: games/sports
8th: Write a sentence with your non-dominant hand
9th: Where do you imagine you will be this time next year?
10th: Writing prompt: gardening
11th: If you had an autobiography, what would its title be?
12th: What is your best member of childhood?
13th: What is the weather like?
14th: Have you written Valentine's cards to pets (or even received one from a pet)?
15th: What are three of your favourite films?
16th: What book(s) are you in the middle of?
17th: What has made you smile recently?
18th: Write a sentence backwards
19th: What time do you have breakfast?
20th: Writing prompt: radio
21st: Doodle some eyes
22nd: What is a favourite quote from fiction?
23rd: Do you keep a diary or journal or scrapbook?
24th: Writing prompt: spring
25th: Have you written any poetry or verse?
26th: Writing prompt: music
27th: Do you volunteer for good causes?
28th: When did you send your first ever email?

Goulet Pens and others do writing prompts for types of people to write letters to. blog.gouletpens.com/2020/01/how-to-participate-in-incowrimo-2020/

Still writing

 I'm still here, writing letters, trying to keep away from the elephants in the room topics. Five Questions, Answer by Snail Mail helps. After the current letter I am in the middle of writing, I will answer someone's Five Questions, posted on the A World of Snail Mail forum. 

1st October was World Postcard Day, and where do I know that loves postcards? Why yes, Postcrossing. And so, for it, I requested a couple of addresses and posted them, as well as another postcard to reply to one from Russia sent during February for A Month of Letters. 

There isn't much space on the postcard for many nice stamps. I wanted to use up some of the older stamps than buy the new stamps of the new value for sending by international standard / Air Mail / Post Awyr / Par Avion!

I had slowed down on writing letters recently, as there were days I just didn't feel like picking up a pen. Ideally, I want to reply between a fortnight and a month, but was running at 6 weeks for a few letters last month. I've found my mojo again.

I have written and sent over 365 letters this year, and it feels great! I should surpass 400 before long. I do tend to slow down in December, but whether I will this year, I don't know. Letters bring joy. 

My Postcrossing anniversary - my 10th.

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of me joining Postcrossing. I joined because I wasn't getting replies from people I had written to via various penpalling sites. Many profiles there mentioned Postcrossing so I got curious. I sent postcards, always trying to keep my full allowance going. I joined their forums and participated in many Round Robins, as well as starting a couple of my own RRs. I was sending loads of postcards every month. I even joined the big monthly RR. I think what got me was when Royal Mail hiked up postage from 68p to 87p. I felt betrayed, I still do, and postage is now £1.25. When I started, I think postage was 50p to Europe.  I was in the top 10 UK Postcrossers, however, with last actively sending about 4 years ago, I slipped down the rankings. I did send a few postcards out last year, not many.

So, in celebration, I wrote 24 postcards (not my full allowance) yesterday. Some caught yesterday's collection, and some went today.

 I will always be fond of this site, the idea to connect people around the world via the simple postcard, in a time of digital communication. However, I still prefer correspondence via letter than postcards, although I do like postcards. 

Web bookmarks and such

I think my computer is getting old and has given me a bit of trouble the last couple of weeks. I might need a new one sooner rather than later, so I have been going through some of my bookmarks.

Are Postcards Obsolete? an article from The Washington Post.

An article about Handwriting from The New York Times What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades?

A TEDx talk from Ana Campos of Postcrossing, in Portuguese.

A rather delayed letter arrives 25 years late.

‘Lost’ pen pal letter returned to sender after 40 years - did any of my blog readers here write to anyone called Julie who lived in Weston Coyney in 1974? Julie wrote a letter but it doesn't appear to have reached Cathy (in France) at the beginning of 1975.

Letter-Writing 2.0 from The American Spectator. Tongue-and-cheek!

Enjoy!

How do you find penpals? - updated.

Back in 2012, I wrote a blog post called How do you find penpals? Although the details there are still valid, I would like to add a few more details. I'll repeat most of that post here.

So, how did I find penpals?

Well, in school, I filled out a form for a youth penpal service, though I can't remember which organisation it was. I paid for some penpals and received some letters. However, as a teenager, I found myself busy with other things, such as homework and being with friends. So, unfortunately, penfriendship dwindled.

Then, as after leaving university, I wanted penpals again. I bought a free ads paper and saw that there was a form to place an ad internationally through their sister papers. I placed an ad in 10 international papers and received some letters. I still write to one of them.

Then, when I got my first computer, I wanted some penpals, but only found people who wanted email friendship. One even got worried if I did not write daily. I gave up for a few years.

Then, in 2008, I decided to try again for snailmail penpals. First port of call was PenPal International and had  found a few people to write to. However, the letters stopped (maybe lost in the post, or they stopped writing). I also tried Interpals and found more people that way. However, it was the same old story, the letters stopped. Also, some who said they would write the first letter, never did (or it was lost in the mail). One thing good about Interpals was that I discovered Postcrossing and this satisfied my hunger for nice mail, with postcards to and from all over the world. I discovered their forums (fora?) and found penpals through that, although not everyone continued their correspondence with me. I have tried other penpal websites but ...

Some penfriends started sending me Friendship Books (FBs). These are little booklets, sent with letters for people to write their name and address in, perhaps a bit about themselves and abbreviations such as NPW (new penpals welcome), NNSP (no new swap pals). I haven't received any letters via this route. I had started to make my own, first sending them around Spring 2009, but none have made their way back home, even 6 years later.

These are a few I have made. I sew the paper into the cover, rather than using staples. I haven't sent many new ones recently. Comments received on the original post had concerns of where these friendship books go, some could be sent to prisoners, or to those who are not really interested in letters.

Another site I found for penpalling, well, is mainly a craft and swap site called Swap-Bot. Almost anyone, over the age of 18, can create a swap, people then join and when the deadline for joining is over, the host of the swap checks through the profiles of the people, and if all is well, tells the computer to assign partners. I have joined postcard, letter and Christmas card swaps. I haven't hosted my own swap (I would automatically join the swap). As I write this blog entry, popular swaps include various ones for Artistic Trading Cards (ATC), postcard swaps and pocket letters (in a 9-section trading card sleeve).

In 2012, there was The Month of Letters Challenge (LetterMo) for the month of February. The challenge was to send an item of post (postcard, letter, ...) every "postal" day, so this was 24 days for USA. I had mail ready to go out every day, but missed the last postal collection on one Saturday, so instead of letting the item be lonely in the postbox, I kept it at home until Monday. I wrote to new people who were doing this challenge, and have developed a penfriendship with some of them. I also took part in 2013. However, outside of just before February and a couple of weeks after, the site's forum was neglected. 

In 2014, I joined my first InCoWriMo (International Correspondence Writing Month) signing up on the fpgeeks forum. This is similar to the LetterMo challenge and I wrote/received letters to/from a range of different people. I might not have written to them if they had instead a profile up on Interpals. It was quite a freeing experience, not constrained by gender, age, preconceptions - just correspondence. I am still writing to some people from the 2014 InCoWriMo. I signed up again in 2015 but didn't take part in LetterMo. 

I have also found friendship via SendSomething. There are other sites available, e.g.  The Letter Exchange  (something I haven't tried yet, but they have a magazine, and is a subscription service), and Letter Writers Alliance (I am a member).  Instagram and Tumblr are other sites becoming popular to find penpals. You can get ideas there too about snailmail. There are groups on Facebook but caution is needed there too (I recognise some names from other sites where they haven't been reliable senders)

New up though is a forum and monthly project Five Questions 5 Letters. I have some new correspondence from that and it is looking promising.  

How was February?

I sent 5, and received 18 surprises (across LetterMo, InCoWriMo and SendSomething)

Replies to these surprises, I sent 9 replies and received 1.

With existing penpals, I sent 16 letters and received 16 letters. 

Other items, 1 package went out, 2 came in. I also received 3 other items of mail from existing contacts, and send a letter to someone new via another hobby.

I sent 66 Postcrossing postcards plus another postcard sent to Portugal for the "boss" and received 23 postcards.

Bank holidays

Bank Holiday Mondays mean no post received that day. Today is Tuesday and the only item of post arrived was for my son and it was a postcard from his classmate on holiday in Spain (he arrived back home at least a week or so ago).

I did have a letter on Saturday, the only one in my pile to reply to.

I posted more Postcrossing postcards today too. One sent postcard of mine arrived in India after only 5 days! One to Thailand arrived in 4 days! 

Some more outgoing post...

I sent up to my full allowance of Postcrossing postcards this week.

Just a small selection of outgoing post....

And some more...

Saw this book... Masters of the Post: The Authorized History of the Royal Mail. I think I'll add this to my to-read list.

Postcrossing again

I don't know where my postman has got to... he hasn't brought me many letters recently and I do like to receive nice post. Therefore, I decided to send postcards in order to receive nice postcards. I now have my full Postcrossing limit written and stamped (some written and posted Thursday or Friday).
A complaint though - there is not a lot of space on the Royal Mail Doctor Who postcards for the address and stamps... Remind me to take a photo later in the week.

Good Mail Day

 This morning, I decided to write a few postcards..

 

And then the postman came....

Just some of the items of mail with some great stamps on the letters and postcards.

And including this beautifully calligraphied envelope.

Postcrossing postcards

Last night, I scanned in a lot of postcards, then this morning, I put them in my postcard boxes. I am amazed at the wealth of variety, in both postcard and stamps. I decided to have a look at some of the ones from Finland.

Here are just a few postcards and stamps. I love the variety of themes, Moomins, Aurora Borealis, winter sports (these are lenticular).... Perhaps I'll do other countries, or perhaps themes some time. 

Time for lunch and some letter writing...

Just some postcards and stamps

Today's post is a selection of outgoing mail posted on Friday.

 

There were other postcards posted too.

There  is just enough room on some postcards (as long as the address isn't too big), to use 1st class stamps with 3 more stamps to make up the airmail postage. 

Some of the postcards have already reached their destinations. 

6-7 June post

I have decided to show pictures of outgoing mail, of the stamps. No addresses (mine or the recipient's) will be shown.

Yesterday, I posted just two letters, eager to travel after the long Diamond Jubilee and Spring Bank Holidays.

But today, I posted some Postcrossing postcards. I posted more than are shown in the picture. 

These are the stamps I received on incoming mail, a postcard from Denmark, letters from The Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom, ( but the London postcard was enclosed in a letter), and a very special Postcrossing postcard.

It has a special Postcrossing postmark cancellation. Woo hoo!