During the week I got a blank postcard with my name and address on one side and a picture of Costa Rica on the back. I was quite baffled. Conversation with my sister revealed the following:
- She bought a postcard for me and addressed it when she was in Costa Rica in 2013.
- She never sent it.
- She brought it home.
- Her partner’s mother has a friend who likes to send postcards of places he has never been.
- My sister posted a lot of blank postcards to her
- The envelope opened in the post box.
- The post office dutifully delivered the unstamped blank post card to me.
Not vintage content, I would concede, but there it is, this week’s postal mystery unravelled.
Separately, the census enumerator collected the census form. I had dutifully divided the time capsule bit at the back into 5 for us all to fill in a bit. It was on the hall table for herself to add her bit but, alas, she had not done so by the time the enumerator came. I wanted to take a photo of the time capsule as well for…um, not posterity, for me I suppose but it was not to be. I put in as much as I could about family history (I bitterly resent that empty fifth as I had much more to say but there you go); Mr. Waffle put in a bit about us and our cat; Michael hoped that there were people to read it; and Daniel put in a line from a song. I do hope we get to do it again next census.
That is the start of a film, thriller or comedy, probably not horror.
But more about the mother’s friend, that is a weird hobby.
Liking the cat on the census, why don’t they ask about pets? They used to ask about no. of windows, maybe this will tip the balance.
I’m with herself though, give them nothing to go on, but she could have let you know to use her space.
All I can say about postcard man is that I understand he is a priest who taught Latin in their sons’ school. Classicists are odd, I offer you.
My (teenage) father used to send envelopes addressed to a generic priest in some small village in colonial Africa. The letter collected postmarks and interesting stamps as it travelled from place to place as they hopelessly attempted to find said Rev. Klum, before it was eventually returned to my father who delighted in such philatelic insignificance. Inside the envelope he would enclose a note explaining what it was all about. One day the envelope returned containing a note from some personage in remotest Africa saying his wife liked philately and perhaps they should correspond. My sister has framed the envelope and its contents, and it will provide future generations with a puzzle when physical letters are no more than a memory.
In defense of the religious gentleman, he likes to send people cards and for him not having visited the place is no reason not to send a card.
(I feel the world would be a better place if more people sent cards – I seem to be in a minority at the moment)
What a delightful story and a ringing endorsement of the physical letter.