Letter 9

One of the things that has struck me the most since getting involved with Postcrossing and 52 Weeks of Mail is the huge online community that supports letters, post, writing, mail and everything related. One project that has crossed my path is in a site called The World Needs More Love Letters. The site as a whole aims to encourage people to leave notes around offering words of encouragement to people in their daily lives - not a romantic love letter, but one born out of an anonymous platonic love! This Christmas they are running a project called The Twelve Days of Love Letter Writing - you can read about it here. Monday 5th December was the first day of the project and the task was to write a letter of support to a person called Nickie who'd been through a difficult time! This is the loving letter decor I chose for Day 1:

I sent a Jasmine Pearls Teapig so she could have a lovely cup of tea and hopefully the hearts will act like a visual embrace for her! I think it's beautiful that there are online communities that come together in this way to support others ... aww

More letters were to two girls whose parents are divorcing. It's very difficult to know what to say when you've never been in that situation yourself, but it reinforced to me the importance of NOT saying "I've been there it gets better", but saying "things are rubbish and that's ok, they will improve". I also won a competition from a company called Botanical Paperworks

They sell cards that are made of paper that is filled with seeds, that you then plant and grow! I'm excited to plant the card they sent to me, and I turned the front of it into a Postcrossing card too!

I'm also really enjoying using my nice fountain pen! I always use biros and pencils at work and it's so easy to forget the joy of using a lovely pen to write some lovely words. I also love this pen as it's the one my lovely mother bought me to use at university. It's very special to me. This week is a week of letters and next week will be too, however I have missed writing to someone I know to tell them my news and how much I value them. Hopefully next week, I'll continue with the 12 Days of Love Letters and also be able to find time to write a lovely letter too!

Letter 6

Without sounding too much like X-factor, this week was Love Letter Week.

I have never written a love letter as an adult. I remember some early teen lovenotes at school that signed off with "time for tubby bye-bye". The sender shall remain nameless. I've never loved someone enough to want to sit down and write out how and why I love them so much.
If you know me at all, you'll know I like to do some research - write just from the heart, pah! A complex set of research must be done. Last week when me and the beloved were on holiday in Northumberland we went to Barter Books in Alnwick and I got (amongst other things within my ten pound budget) the Oxford Book of Letters. What surprised me was the actual paucity of love letters in there. There was one from the wife of John Adams (future American president) which whined at him to write longer letters despite the fact he was fighting in the revolution. It is also told him how he was running his campaigns wrong and what he ought to do instead. Interfering wife. In a much more saucy way were the letters between Nelson and Emma Hamilton, where he longs for her body (she cannot imagine how much). He also says he misses their little girl. It's both cute and a bit risque!

With failings in the research I turned to stationary. PINK I thought, is clearly the stationary colour of love. I bought a baby pink A4 sheet, a pink metallic envelope and a hot pink fountain pen. Then I went to Maison Blanc thinking that French=love surely, anyway it is quite near work. I sat down and bemused the waitress by then writing this very important missive.

I think the contents are private - sorry! But I tried to explain all the things that make me love Daz the most. Sometimes a bit listy, which I think is down to my inexperience in love-letter-writing, but it was excellent to sit down and think about how much I love my realtionship. So I implore you, write your beloved a love letter this week. I often take those closest to me for granted and maybe we should all take some time out to say thank you for being who you are right next to me.

If your partner is a dick, you should dump them and write a love letter to a stranger instead.

Love Letter Writing 101