Catching Up

 I just realised it's been a week since I last put in a "proper" blog post among the pre-scheduled calendar posts. The weather lately has been dominantly dark grey, foggy and cold; and there's not been much to inspire neither photograpy nor writing. 

On Monday this week we had a bit of a break in the clouds though, and I took advantage of that for a walk into town for a haircut + a couple of other errands. (I phoned my hairdresser in the morning and she was able to fit me in.)

The low sun put a spotlight on this view over the park (and church tower in the background) as I approached the town centre.

The Christmas decorations on the footbridges over the river to/from the park have been the same for a few years now. Stars on one, hearts + 'mistletoe' on another.

 

(After the haircut)

 

My artist friend Lena, living on the west coast, recently published a book with a selection of her seaside water colours. I bought one (she sent it to me by post), and decided to have that book as my "Advent calendar" this December. (It will last beyond Christmas, though.) So for now I have put it on an easel, and try to keep to turning just one page a day! (Last summer I visited one of Lena's exhibitions and blogged about that here.)

At home I've also been keeping busy with things like writing my Swedish Christmas cards, and yesterday (Tuesday) I got those plus a couple of parcels posted down at the main post office down by the railway. With post only delivered every other weekday here nowadays, one had better not cut it too close...

This is not the post office, but an old house that I like, in a street where I walk to get there.  (I don't know its history, but nowadays it seems to be an estate agent's office.) 

Recently having seen that Postnord (our postal services) will be raising the postage again in January by another shocking 22%, I also bought some more stamps (of the "forever" kind) while they're still sold at this year's price. I've already cut down a lot on sending postcards (especially via Postcrossing) - but during the years that I've been into that, I've also somehow managed to collect quite a stock of unwritten cards; and it seems a shame not to continue to give those a chance to travel as intended... There's quite a bit of irony to the situation, as one of my reasons to join Postcrossing in the first place was that I inherited a lot of stamps... (Out of which most of the ones usable for sending postcards abroad have long since been used up...) 

However, I just found a way to even things out a bit... Swedish friends living in Thailand sadly had their house flooded back in the summer and a lot of their belongings destroyed. By now they've managed to get most things sorted and renewed etc with help from friends and insurances; but of course they're still missing a lot of personal stuff of the kind hard to replace. The other day my friend mentioned (on FB) wanting to send someone a card and then missing that box of cards that she'd been collecting over a long time (and which did not survive the flood).  So yesterday I put together a varied mix of postcards to send to her. Ironically, it turns out  that the postage needed for sending a package of around a hundred unwritten cards across the world is just about the same as sending three (3) individual cards the same distance...

Christmas Cards

 

Incoming Christmas cards 2023

 

I have always enjoyed both sending and receiving Christmas cards. More and more people are giving up that tradition though - and I really don't blame those who do. Postage keeps increasing with every year, while at the same time our delivery service here has shrunk to 2-3 times a week. (Either Monday-Wednesday-Friday, or Tuesday-Thursday.) 

For my own part, sending cards within Sweden still costs me very little, though - as my father was a foresighted hoarder of early "forever" stamps, and I inherited lots of really early ones (1980s) from him, still valid for use within Sweden (even though postage has gone up by 1000% since then).

The inherited stamps that I could also use for international letters and cards for a while are long gone by now though - which has made me cut down quite a bit on Postcrossing (with strangers) in later years. 

I do still send some postcards and letters abroad anyhow, though - so when it caught my attention shortly before Christmas that PostNord (our postal services) are again about to raise the postage (both domestic and international) by another 20% in January; I decided to follow in my father's footsteps and put in another "hoarding" order on forever stamps myself. (I did the same thing last year.)  

Like magic these tiny pieces of paper will increase 20% in value between 12:59 pm on New Year's Eve and 00:01 am on New Year's Day. (And unlike the old ones from the 1980s, the modern ones are also valid for mail going abroad. One stamp for domestic post, two for international.)

So I'm not quite giving up on snail mail just yet...

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Illustration by Bing AI

 

Amaryllis and Postage

The budding Amaryllises I bought for last weekend are opening up their flowers now. :-) The pink one in my living room, and the red one in the kitchen.

At the beginning of the week gone by, I posted my "far away" Christmas cards. (Asia, Australia, North America) I hope they'll all reach their destinations in time this year.

The ones going to other countries within Europe (including Great Britain) will be posted some time next week. Most of my Swedish ones are still waiting to be written, but should be posted before the 15th (recommended by PostNord Sweden).

While pottering about with this, I learned that postage will be going up again next year - by around 15%. With the general inflation and energy crisis, I suppose not really surprising; but it's beginning to feel expensive. So I will at least be cutting back on postcrossing (i.e. international exchange of postcards with random strangers)...

From 1 January 2023, the cost to send an international letter or postcard from Sweden will be 30 SEK - which currently equals $2,9 / €2,75 / £2,3. 

I still have quite a lot of unwritten postcards in stock, though, so have decided to prolong my 'transition period' a bit by ordering a good supply of 'forever' stamps before New Year - at the old price.  ;-)

Post Office Letter Carriers - Sepia Saturday 473

My paternal grandfather, born 1904, was a journalist and photographer. I think this photo may have been taken by him in the mid 1920s.
 
The building is the railway station at Fristad (in the province of Västergötland, Sweden). The station house was built in 1900 - the same year my grandmother was born. (There had been an older wooden building before that.) 

The post office was also in the station house; and this photo obviously shows the postmen and coach drivers delivering the post to the village and surrounding countryside.

One of the men in this photo could be my grand-mother's older half-brother Carl. He was born in 1870 and died in 1928. Most likely the driver of the carriage on the right (without uniform).
 
Their father (my great-grandfather) Samuel, born 1835, was a farmer, and also used to deliver post back in the 1890s. The story in the family is that he met his second wife, my great-grandmother Selma, in a country store to which he delivered the post. He was a widower with several grown-up and nearly grown-up children then; while Selma was a younger widow with one daughter from her first marriage. They got married in 1898; and my grandmother Sally was born in 1900.

When Samuel retired from farming in 1903 (he died in 1907), his oldest son Carl took over the farm, and also the delivery of post. 

I posted the same photo on my blog Greetings from the past back in 2013, then linked to Sepia Saturday 182. Back then, I still had the identities of two of my grandmother's older brothers mixed up. But if the one in this photo is Carl, who died in 1928, that narrows down the date of the photo to that year at the latest. And if the photographer was my grandfather (born in 1904) I don't think it can be earlier than 1922 (probably later). 

Maybe... Just a guess, but it suddenly strikes me that 1925 may have been an occasion to have such a photo taken (and perhaps published in the local newspaper?), as that would be the 25th anniversary of the station house.

Below are two postcards published by Swedish Post in 1969, showing postal coaches from the 1880s (owned by the Post Museum since the early 1900s).

Linking to:
Sepia Saturday 473