What's bin happenin'

A little summary of this last week.

Ivy
Poor Ivy has been neutered and is currently moping about the house.  Not because of the loss of her bits but because her head is encased in a collar.  She probably thinks it's for life.  I keep telling her it will be coming off next Friday but she doesn't seem to understand.  Combine that with her desire to be out of doors and she is one unhappy bunny - well unhappy cat.

Liverpool
On Thursday I went over to Liverpool with Partner-who-loves-tea.  She had a meeting during which time I wandered the Albert Dock. 

I found lots of postcards at a mere ten pence each so was delighted.  We met up again and had a coffee after which we wandered through a few shops and into Cavern Walks.  It seems that Cavern Walks has died since I was last in there.  The recession has hit a lot of the big firms like HMV, Blockbusters, T J Hughes and so on but this was the first time it was apparent to me just how many small firms have gone.  The place was virtually empty of shops - a cafe, a couple of clothes / shoe shops and the jewellers were all that were left.  Unsurprisinglty there were no customers - just the occasional foreign tourist wandering around staring at the empty plate glass windows obviously bemused by why Cavern Walks was in the Tourist Guide.

Blogs
I have tried catching up with [eople's blogs. On Tuesday I was three days behind.  I am now - three days behind.  Ah well, I suppose that means that I at least haven't lost any ground. 

 Books
 Among the books I have been reading / read this week was 'Five Children and It' (1902)  (The first book in the Psammead series by Edith Nesbit).  I was reminded of this by Dawn Treader and upon reading it I'm not surevif I read it as a child or not.  It is very Enid Blyton like in its side comments to the reader about how one should or should not behave.
I zoomed through Martin Davies' 'Mrs Hudson and the Malabar Rose' (2005) - a Victorian mystery; the Mrs Hudson in question being Sherlock Holmes' housekeeper.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and shall now seek it's predecessor.
I am also well into Simon Winchester's 'The Professor and the Madman' (1998) recommended by Canadian Chickadee. It is a true tale of murder and mystery in the creation in the Oxford English Dictionary and is proving most enjoyable.
I have just started Herman Melville's 'Bartleby the Scrivener' (1853)
And finally, I am half way through a fantasy novel by David Gemmell, 'Sword in the Storm' (1998).  

Postcrossing
I think I have received a record number of postcards this week, along with a few letters. Not all the postcards were from unknown postcrossers.  Some were from friends here, there and everywhere.  I love finding personal post on the doormat. 

Thanks to The Missive Maven I was directed to a forum thread where someone called The Epistler had written the following. I think it is an excellent summary of why one writes...

"There have been times when I was about to post a link or a comment to a friend's Facebook wall, and I decided to email instead—to emphasize that this communication was a gift to them, not a performance for the world; and then beyond that sometimes I have thought "No. That's still not a clear enough emphasis that this is for you." And it doesn't have to be really personal stuff. It could just be pointing out an author or an article or such of interest.

It just feels like a more directed, caring, generous, mindful, focused, gift-giving act to write to someone in post rather than to just post a link on their FB wall. And there are many dimensions to this: the time cost, the stationery cost, the postage cost, the extra time that writing with a pen takes, the better thought-out product that usually results, the individual expressions involved in paper/pen/ink/stamp choice (saying things perhaps about the writer, perhaps about the writer's perception of the receiver, perhaps about the writer's perception of his or her relationship with the receiver) and in the uniqueness of handwriting, the giving of a physical object that was once yours and was made with your own hands for a specific intended—much as if you had knitted them a sweater, the opportunity for the receiver to have and to keep a physical reminder of being thought of and cared about which has, among its significances, the role of being an enduring manifestation of the otherwise evanescent, abstract gift of time—the time taken to craft the letter."

In the same forum thread I came across someone who had written

"I wish I could write to my mom and dad, but sadly, they are gone."

One of the responses was as follows -

"Why would you let a silly thing like death stop you? I still write to my mother and father in Other Side Camp. Just cause the Postal Service can't deliver there, that don't mean the message ain't received....

...You could call this a mere journal entry, but it's not. Writing to someone is quite different from writing about someone, whether it's mailed to yourself and just saved, unopened, or whether you send it to Other Side Camp through the fire, it's different."

Quite thought provoking.

Quote of the week
"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies." 

Act 1 - J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan