Hello folks, well this will be my last blog for some time now! Today is my last day at work before Christmas, so for any of you reading this Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. See you all here again in 2006…. Hopefully!

Call me old fashioned, and I am sure you will probably will once you have read this, particularly those of you who are technology minded, you will think I am an old fashioned English eccentric, but maybe I am. I think that letters and letter writing is a lost art, and one that we should be fighting not to lose. Now as you know one of my favourite places to shop is Smythson the stationary emporium, but frankly I’m not sure how such companies as these and Aspinal and their American counterparts manage to keep trading.

Let’s consider how things were before the internet really took off! Of course people used the telephone, we aren’t going back to pre – Alexander Graham Bell, however the telephone can be a personal tool, the sound of the voice of a loved one or a friend or family member, the intonations of their voice coming through with each word said so that there are few misunderstandings on how things should sound… instant replies rather than waiting to see if someone even bothers to answer your email or if you still end up having to call them anyway, but this conversation is for another day, my concern today is letter writing. So here we are, it’s pre-internet (you can attach your own decade) and you come down your stairs to a pile of envelopes lying on your door mat! This fills you with mixed emotions, hatred for the bills that are inevitable in there, but also anticipation and excitement for what else lies in there. You pull out a smooth cream envelope with handwritten text on the front, do you recognise the handwriting? If you do then you know it’s a friend writing to you to catch up/ invite you to their new house/ invite you to a party etc. If not, then who is it, you can’t wait to get the envelope open? As you open the envelope therein lays 3 sheets of posh writing paper, filled with words. Now you haven’t got time to read it now, you’re late for work, so you pop it in your handbag, you can read it on the train! On the train you have great pleasure in reading in depth what has been going on in your friend’s life over the past 6 months since last she wrote. You pop it in your bag again, and on returning home you read it again. The following day you can read it again, before settling down with your own cross pen, smythson stationary and full mind to begin your reply; you can’t wait to send it knowing she will appreciate the letter just as much as you did hers! And even if you don’t hear from her again for another 6 months, you can keep hold of the letter and read it again whenever you want to make you think of your friend. And what of Love letters… now these really are a gift in themselves. I hate to go all mushy on you, but Peter, knowing my love of these old fashioned tokens wrote me a beautiful love letter last week when I was unwell, it lifted my spirits, woke my heart and made me feel all the better when I was feeling really down, I keep it in a box with letters from friends and all the cards and notelets Peter has ever given me. Since he gave me that letter I have read it a good few times, I keep going over it… because I can, and it makes me feel happy, loved!

Let us compare this with modern times. Now I am by no means against the technology that is the computer, as I’m sure you have all gathered now there is nothing I love more than updating my blog, without the internet I would not be able to do this and to interest/annoy all you blog readers, or to shop on shops that aren’t in Coventry… there are numerous uses for the internet, but it does not replace a letter! Firstly, an email is very impersonal, a standard font, on a standard background, to print out on standard white printer paper if you feel the need (another thing, why print it off? Why not just have letters instead?) There is no thought, just someone’s name flashes up on your screen, it usually interrupts something you are highly busy with at the time and you end up opening the email, briefly looking at it, not taking any notice, banging off a reply and then deleting the email because heaven forefend that it should take up valuable work space in your inbox. Don’t get me wrong, work life and some queries and general chat would be a hell of a lot more tedious without it, but it’s not by any standards a replacement for the good old letter… and I’m not only person with this Opinion. Perhaps it comes of being brought up in a time where pen pals were encouraged, mine was a lovely girl called Kim from Korea, it was so exciting to receive her letter every month and learn all about her culture!

Anyway, long live the letter!