The End of an Era

 

For 45 years of of my life (ever since I first moved away from my parents' house to live on my own), I've had my mail, and newspapers, delivered through a slot in my door, and landing with a 'thump' on the doormat. (Or a doormat. I've moved a few times and worn out a few doormats along the way.) 

As of next week, I won't be hearing that sound again. Postboxes have been installed down in the entrance of my building; and next week our apartment doors will be exchanged for new 'safety doors', without any letter slots in them.

(I think we'll be getting some sort of holder for newspapers next to the door. If not, I'll probably switch to digital subscription sooner rather than later. I still do really like the 'paper paper' with my breakfast rather than reading it on the tablet, though... What about you??) 

As it's all part of upgrading safety, I don't want to complain. Just sayin' it may take me a while before I stop missing the familiar excitement of the sound of mail pushed through the letter slot - usually making me get up straight away to check if it includes postcards or letters...

As the mail does not arrive at a fixed time every day, but sometimes before noon and sometimes not until hours later, I now won't know when to go down and check the postbox.  

 

On the whole, I guess the new routine will mean less exercise for the posties, and all the more for me!

(The top image is my own photo of my door - soon to be exchanged. The rest I found online - hopefully not infringing on anyone's copyright.)

7 Years of Postcrossing

This morning, I received a surprise email:

 

Er... no, I can't really say I remember... 

But seeing who sent the email is of course a clue in itself... ;)

Checking my Postcrossing account, I note that over those seven years, I have sent no less than 900 registered postcards to random strangers around the world - and received as many.

I think the first time I mentioned Postcrossing on my blog was 31st May, 2013. It was through one of my first friends in the Blogosphere (Scriptor Senex of Rambles from my Chair) that I first learned about the project; and a lot of inherited stamps from my dad made me decide to join. It just seemed more fun to me to put the stamps to use rather than sell them or just keep them.

With the increase in postal rates and so on, most of the inherited stamps have indeed been sent out into the world by now (except some of low value, the use of which would leave no room to write anything on the card!) In the meantime, I had somehow managed to overestimate how many cards I needed to buy... so now it was the cards begging me to be sent travelling... So I had to buy more stamps... and then more cards... and so it goes on!!!

PS. I also suspect that over these seven years I've probably exchanged about as many cards outside the Postcrossing system as within it. From storage point of view, it would no doubt have been wiser to just keep the stamps... But not half as much fun!

Two cards that dropped in this past week:

Quote card (with matching stamp on the back),

from him who first inspired me to join Postcrossing

Dandelion Flower Fairy
from my penpal Jarina in the Netherlands

A Touch of White Magic

Today I went out for a walk around 11 am, to post some Christmas cards that have a long way to travel. Alas, the nearest letter box to where I live gets emptied as early as 9 am nowadays. (And guess who is never up that early in the winter?) So, as the weather was not too unpleasant, I decided to walk to the main post office - where the boxes are emptied later. The camera asked to come along, and we took a shortcut path that runs along the railway...

Long train coming...

Decided to walk a different way back home, just because after a very grey and dull month of November, almost anything looks interesting again now - with touch of frost or snow added to it.

 The old regiment buildings (nowadays housing businesses and apartments).

 I'm going to be a Christmas tree when I grow up...

My summer "Butterfly park" - now without butterflies...

A Box of Air

Yesterday, I received a text message that I had a parcel to pick up. I was not too surprised that I had to go and collect it, but as all I had ordered was two sets of postcards and some stickers, I had still expected a flat and rather small parcel – not the big box that was handed to me over the counter. I had to check the address label twice to make sure it was really for me! The box was light, but still nothing seemed to be rattling around in there.

When I got home, the secret was revealed: On top of the few flat items at the bottom of the box, were 20 bags of Sealed Air:

The pleasure of popping those for recycling is still ahead of me.

(Little My - Moomin character - sticker)

Busy Days

This is the kind of stuff that’s been keeping me busy over the weekend, if anyone is wondering. I discovered on Saturday that my overseas Christmas cards should have been posted already on Friday… They’re still not posted, as today I’ve been busy with: 1/ getting my phones restarted with their new SIM-cards, and 2/ laundry.

So my cards & letters still haven’t got any further than to my own nondigital “out-box” in the hall…

(Photos emailed to myself from my new phone.)

A Post about Post Past and Present

The image above is a postcard from 1969 showing a postal coach from the 1880s (the coach belonging to the Post Museum; the card found in my dad’s desk).

In the 1880s, my great-grandfather was driving a postal coach, even if probably a less fancy one. And if he hadn’t, I would not be sitting here blogging, because that’s probably how he met my great-grandmother! Read more in Greetings from the Past: Postal Service in the Past (my contribution this week to Sepia Saturday).

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As for Postal Service in the Present, postcrossing postcards keep dropping in and making it quite exciting to go and check when I hear the post dropping through the letterbox in my door…

1. Worms, Germany   2. Ogrodzíeníec, Poland
3. Netherlands   4. Rózyanstok, Poland (sent from Russia)
5. Chișinău, Moldova

1. Český Šternberk Castle, Czech Republic
2. Odessa, Ukraine
3. Liberty, Kentucky

Please Try Again Later

  

Three months ago I hardly knew what an “app” was (because my old mobile/ cell phone was just a phone). Today I spent the whole afternoon in an Aargh! state of mind over one. For all I know it might be a temporary problem. The problem is I don’t know!

Isn’t technology just wonderful?!

Yesterday, with some anxiety, I updated the software in my phone (because it kept telling me to). Seemed to be all right. But today when I got notifications (on the phone) of new emails, and tried to read them on the phone, they weren’t there. Luckily, though, when I turned on the computer, there they were; so they were not lost completely. They just weren’t in the phone app, even though it kept sending me notifications of them coming in. Very annoying; in much the same way as when you lose something within your small flat, and you are 100% sure that it cannot really have disappeared, and you turn the whole place upside down to find it, but it’s still missing.

What stopped working is the Yahoo Mail app which until now I’d have given at least four and a half stars. Of course I tried uninstalling and reinstalling it, thinking that this might reset it back to normal. (And yes, I also turned the phone itself off and on again…) The only result is that now it won’t let me in at all. It just keeps saying: “Sorry! We are unable to access your mailbox currently. Please try again later.”

So – obedient as I am – I keep trying (every five minutes or so!) But so far to no avail. I have, however, discovered that I am able access my email from two other applications on the phone. But neither of those combines all the (former) advantages of the one that stopped working. So I’m still in “aargh” mode.

I guess eventually I’ll somehow get on with my life, though… 

 

A Slight Delay

In the mail today I received a big envelope with the municipal authorities’ logo, addressed to me. Inside I found two forwarded envelopes from two different sources. No extra note attached.

One was a letter from the bank re my father’s bank accounts, dated back in early July (i.e. a few weeks after his death). For some odd reason this had been sent to the nursing home where he lived the last year of his life, instead of to me. While he lived, all official mail including bank statements were sent directly to my address. Where’s the logic?? And why the delay??

What puzzled me even more was the other letter, though, because this contained a bill and payment forms for the rent for his flat at the nursing home marked October, November and December. But… but… but…? we emptied that flat before the end of July, and no one had been demanding rent for August and September; so why now??

So I got on the phone to try and sort that out. First person could not sort it out, so she transferred me to someone else. This person too was as confused as I was. She said it was impossible. According to their computers, everything was in order, there was no remaining debt or contract in my father’s name.

Then, suddenly, it dawned on me that the bills I held in my hand were dated 2010, not 2011. They were last year’s bills. That means they were also the reason why last autumn (as I now recalled), I had to phone three months in a row and ask why we had not received a bill/payment form for the rent, and each time they had to send me an extra one. Not until the third time was I informed that their policy was to send three bills at a time. (So it was really only one letter that had got “lost” and not three.)

So. I guess someone in an anonymous office at the service center/nursing home just had a bit of an autumn-cleaning… finally getting to the bottom of that pile on their desk that had been building up for a year! (Sigh!)