Things that are almost as good as chocolate #4

Getting real mail in a real letter box (and I don't mean bills).

I used to have 13 penpals, back when I was 17 and had time to do things like write newsy letters. I had penpals from many different countries - some were friends that moved overseas when I was younger and I kept writing to them, and some were the friends of new friends (the new friends having moved to Australia from overseas).

Now, I admit, email (and Facebook) are great for keeping in constant touch with people. Instant touch. But they are nothing at all like the letters you would get in the mail box in the front garden.

And that zing of joy that you'd get when you found a fat envelope in the mail, with stamps, and your name on it. I would take it inside turning it over and over, looking at the handwritten address and sit down with a happy sigh, and read it. There is nothing like getting and reading a real letter.

These days my hand gets cramped after half a page of A4 handwriting. Those muscles just don't work anymore.

So I think I'd trade a block of chocolate for a fat envelope in the letterbox any day. Of course, now I HAVE traded in the chocolate for a year, it's extra disappointing only to find bills in the letterbox. But, as my mother used to say (when my brothers complained that I always had mail and they never did), 'you have to write letters to get letters'. So perhaps I'll go find a pen. I'm sure there was one in the bottom draw in the back room last time I looked ...