Letter 23

Perhaps I've reached some sort of judicious level or critical mass where I've now written so many letters, I seem to get a new one each week. This is very exciting. This week I got a letter from ... LONDONTOWN. This was very exciting as it was from my friend Jen, who has not just been travelling but now has a new job. That means GOSSIP. And I do really like gossip of the non-salicious, inter-personal type.

This week as well I was also good and carved some time out of what became a lot of hospital-visiting, to sit and drink some tea and write a proper reply. Addressing pertinent questions raised by the very wise Jen. One of those was did I think I'd still do this (and my other blog offalygood) if the internet hadn't been invented. It made me think about the nature of blogging and bloggers (of which I reckon I propbably ought to count myself). Are we all attention-seeking self-publicists?

Well, I do know for 52 Weeks of Mail, if there was no internet I wouldn't have heard about this scheme on the postcrossing, so would I still have thought to sit and write a letter a week for a year? Maybe not, but since I was a chain letter pest at the age of 11 and wrote to the same penpal for a decade, probably I would have made some sort of postal resolution. If you've read before, sometimes it's difficult to write about the letter-writing because it's so intimate, but as I said to Jen, I don't want to have a diary-blog, so it's a delicate balance to tread.

There are more letter-projects up my sleeve, since I was getting fretful that I felt I was a repetitive letter-writer now, but then I realised I'd stopped reading the Mitford Sisters' letters. Why? (Bear with me.) Because they have got a bit repetitive and there are only so many times you can read that Diana has headaches or that Nancy is moving house. I'm going to presevere, now I've realised what I've done, but it did give me hope that perhaps a lot of letter-writing is repetitive, not just for the writer, but maybe the reader too?