crowbelle's Diaryland Diary
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Thank You, Thank You, Thank You
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.
The birthday wishes have just been pouring in for me today, so rather than spend an hour or two thanking each one of you individually (which, I admit would be the proper thing to do), I'm making this page to say a group THANK YOU!
I really don't deserve all this lavish attention, either. I hardly ever post an entry here, but you see, it's a work-thing. Too much of it, and not enough time for my creative brain to compose. Oh sure, I have little snippets of time in each day when, theoretically, I could sit down and write a blip in here, but I like to have a purpose to my entries, not just an entry for the sake of filling the space each day. And really, not that much happens here at Crow Cottage on a daily basis that is noteworthy, unless you are really into collie dogs and their musings,
and an over-the-hill, out-of-shape, schleppy, late 50-something woman who just is too tired of the rat-race to take the time out to communicate much.
I used to do much more writing. Especially in the form of long letters written to friends. You remember those? Real letters, printed on a page and sent thru a thing called the Postal Service? With a stamp on the envelope? I wrote loads of letters to various friends, mostly they were typewritten, but older ones were handwritten. I used to save them, but then started culling a lot of old things and some got discarded. Some days I wish I'd saved them all, especially some of the old love letters I received from my first husband back when he was away in Viet Nam risking his life for this country. He wrote me maybe three or four long flowery letters a day from that war-torn country, and they were what got me through the 18 months he was there. When I'd get a letter, though, I had to remember that it was probably several weeks earlier that he'd written it, so it never really comforted me that he was still alive at the moment I was reading it. I stopped watching the news, too, for fear I'd see something that was too horrible... and there was lots of that nightly back then, in the late 1960s.
Anyway, I still write real letters now and again, but not very often. I did write one recently to a woman in Yorkshire, England. I read a tiny letter she'd written to The Dalesman magazine (a magazine about Yorkshire that we've subscribed to for 20 years) - she was looking for an old recipe for "black pudding" and wondered if anyone had one kicking around.
I researched it on the internet, found one, and printed it out, and sent it off in a real envelope with many stamps to her in the Yorkshire Dales. That was at least a month or two ago. I'd actually forgotten all about it.
The other day I got a tiny little, handwritten air-mail type envelope (you know, those thin papered envelopes with matching thin paper stationery inside) from her. She is lovely, and I think I may have made a new penpal. I've already written back to her. Maybe if we're lucky some day, we'll get back to Yorkshire and can meet her face to face.
I guess I regret letting my letter-writing go by the wayside for the most part. It all happened when the internet took over everyone's lives... it's just too easy to send off an e-mail and think that it will do the trick. But really, letters - real paper letters - were so much nicer and I think always will be. I love reading books of old letters that famous people have written to family and friends, such as Dorothy Wordsworth (her Lakeland Journals is one of my favorite books), Virginia Woolf, and Nathaniel Hawthorne (a cousin of mine!) etc. Personal things are saved that way, that no e-mail technology can duplicate. But all that seems to be fading away now. In a few decades, we probably won't see any new books of famous people's letters published anymore... that's sad.
Well, things are back to normal here today. I've had my cuppa, had two cards from my family, one from Paul (who is radioactive and can't come near me for 3 days) and one from my two "girls" which I thought was very thoughtful.
Paul just left to go lobstering and we had a "virtual hug" - he from his side of the room, and me from mine, as well as a "virtual kiss" goodbye. I'll have to wait until at least Sunday to get some of them for real and up close and personal. And Sunday is the day I will be having my real chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (I hope!) with my family.
So, again, thanks to all my friends for your warm birthday wishes today. I plan to close up my webtv now and go up, plug in my headphones, and type for the remainder of today. A good way to celebrate, I suppose, with good honest work!
Cheers,
Bex
6:55 am - 28 April 2006
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