A new age is here - The Postage Renaissance. In a time where communication has never been easier with advances in digital technology every day, a new and wonderous phenomenon is blossoming - a return to handwritten letters and parcels-in-the-post. It's quite wonderful. It's analogue. It's where it's at, Baby. Yeh!
From strangers swapping land addresses online then sending funky postcards to old friends dropping you a funny card they spotted. It's way cooler than the Knitting Revival, I'm tellin' ya.
Snail Mail, as it's known in the trade, isn't as slow as you'd think either. The time it takes for mail to move from different places on the planet is relatively fast - a hundred years ago it might've taken 6 months for correspondence to arrive in England from here, now it's only a week or so. Waiting 2 weeks for a package to arrive from the States is no hardship and the anticipation and eventual arrival is just so pleasurable.
It's lovely to find James Dean (thank you Valary) or a magazine and letter (thank you kv.) or a beautifully crafted present for the jamjar (thank you Rosie) when I check my letterbox. Sometimes things from people I don't know well and sometimes from people I love dearly. There's no set rhythm so no great pressure for reply mail. I think that's what makes them all so touching, so generous.
PS: I saw a note written in brown crayon on lemon paper attached to an iron sitting on a fence in Bucklands Beach on Saturday morning - the note read "Iron - working order - free - husband has lost instructions" I need to carry my phone more often, I would have loved a pxt of that!