Penpals

 

We're having a very grey and damp 2nd Advent weekend here in south-west Sweden. I managed to get out for about half an hour on Friday, but the rest of the weekend I've been staying in. 

Wondering what to blog about today, my eye fell on the three Christmas cards that have arrived so far, and which I have put on display in the bookshelf in my living room. They come from three different countries (England, Canada and the US); and all three are from Penfriends whom I've known since Before Blogging. 

I've had penfriends ever since I was 10-11 years old. I'm still in touch now and then with the very first one in Sweden. Few long letters these days, but we still always send Christmas greetings, and birthday cards. We first met through an ad in some comics magazine (I forget whether it was her ad or mine) way back in 1966 - i.e. 60 years ago next spring. We only met once in real life, I think in 1978 or 79. She lived (and still lives) further north in Sweden, and I had been up even further north than that to visit another friend, and going back down south by train, I also visited my penfriend for a couple of days. 

We both had several more penpals; and for a while, long before the internet, it was popular among letter-writing friends around the world to also pass around something called "friendship books", as one way of finding new people to write to. And I'm still in touch with some people around my own age abroad, whom I got to know that way.

One of them is Karen in England, who sent me the Christmas card with the London bus above. I just checked, and we've been penpals since 1985, i.e. 40 years. Fewer long letters exchanged these days, but always Christmas cards, and sometimes other postcards in between. We're also friends on FB; but she does not blog, and I doubt she reads mine. 

The Snowman card to the left above came from Heather in Canada. We met in person in Sweden in the summer of 1985, and have kept in touch by letters/cards on and off since then. (Nowadays mostly Christmas cards + FB.)

The other Snowman card is from Debra in the US (and came with a letter). I think she is probably the last one whom I got to know via one of those "friendship books" passed on via penpals - and also the last one with whom I am still in touch solely by snail mail, and not at all on the internet. Her first letter to me is from Sept 2000 - so 25 years by now.

As I have mentioned before a few times, in connection with various "blogoversaries", it was also a penpal in Australia (since 1985) who first inspired me to start blogging. She mentioned (Christmas 2008) that she had started a blog; and when I went to check that out, I found that to be able to  comment, I had to create a Blogger account of my own. And once I had done that, I got curious to explore further how it all worked... So ended up starting my own first blog in January 2009. And while R didn't keep hers going for all that long (it was mostly to do with a crafts project), I'm still blogging away! (R & I are still in touch, too, but now mostly via FB.)

Come to think of it, the chain of contacts leading to why I'm sitting here right now, writing this, can literally be traced back all the way to my very first Swedish penfriend  - because she was the link between me and a penfriend in England (nowadays living in Australia), who in turn became the link between me and the Australian penfriend who became my link to blogging!