I like postcards.
I like receiving them and sticking them up on the fridge. I like killing a bit of time writing notes to friends when having a beer or coffee on some sunny sidewalk spot. I also like rummaging through postcard stands.
What I don’t like is how long they take to get to their destinations these days. In Lisbon 4 weeks ago and posted the card in the postbox at the post office. Been home a week -well ahead of the cards it seems. Other places dont seem to have “proper” letter boxes any more. Instead there is a red box outside some gift shop so you just post and hope.
In the eighties I was in a village in Malawi and the mailbox was a leather satchel hanging off a post in the town square. Mum and Dad got the card. I’ve posted from the Congo where you have to insist they stamp the card in front of you so it doesn’t get peeled off after you leave – got there. I’ve posted from a decaying and chaotic township in Harare where my local friend was laughing as I stuck the cards in the mailbox. They got there.
But send cards from Europe -I’m looking at you Spain and Portugal and I’m still waiting.
What gives?
Sent some from India over a week ago still not here.
A friend sent some from I think Spain , they never arrived. She thought afterwards that she’d possibly posted them in a dog poo deposit box.
Catch 22. Internet means less post, so fewer post boxes so harder to send and slower deliveries means less post.
Face it, Junior, you are an anachronism, but worry not, so am I. Postcards are probably bought more these days as a cheap souvenir than to send. I mean, why bother, when the faecebook and twitter can do the job in an instant, with a “personalised” pic no less. I bet I learnt more about your trip from the former than your chums eagerly awaiting postie to deliver. I know it isn’t the same, there isn’t the mystique and the ceremony but it is a bit like the difference between blogging and writing, in copperplate longhand, with a quilll and ink, in a diary.
Yeah but it is nice to get one isn’t it?
The grand-daughter was working in Spain this summer as an au pair. She sent me a postcard from Seville which popped through my door here in the UK two days later!
And yes, it’s very nice to get one.
Mmmm, synchronicity:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-45861850
Why not take them home with but write out the message at the sidewalk cafe in Italy for authenticity, and send them from home in an envelope so you can stick the Italian stamp on the postcard for even more authenticity.
Wrote some in Morocco but never found a post box. Seeing bro tomorrow. Shall hand deliver.
I remember inter railing around Europe when I was 21. Postcards home from each country was the only way my parents knew where I was! Think I got home before some arrived though and this was 1983.
We sent postcards to both our elderly mums in Scotland from Menorca and Italy this summer. The Italian ones took 10 days to arrive and the Spanish ones took a week.
They were both delighted to get something personal in the post.
Like with every other business these days it’s all about maximizing the profits, back in the day it was seen as an important service to society. So the number of employees goes down, the postage rates go up. Fewer people have to do the same work so it’s going to take longer – yes, we send less letters and postcards now, but buy more online so more packages and also more addressed advertising distributed by mail. A friend of a friend worked in the Swedish Mail and told stories of how when they were pressed for time and had too much mail to deliver, they threw some of it away to be able to “keep up”…I believe it because plenty of people (me included) have lost mail in the last few years (coinciding with changes for the worse at the Swedish Mail – which is a joint venture with Denmark now, BTW…)
I rarely send postcards (but when I do my goal is to find the ugliest one I can find of the place I’m visiting), but I write letters regularly. Most of them reaches their destination fairly quickly, some disappear without a trace. Since I write them on my computer, I just print out another copy and send it again…! 🙂
Re binning. My parents would receive many Christmas cards which for some reason had to be displayed. So they cluttered the mantelpiece , then rows of string were put up so they festooned the walls and doors. The corollary to this is you have to reciprocate by sending a shitload out.
One year , a few months after Christmas, Mum was looking for something in the car and under the drivers seat, lo and behold, the very shitload of cards I referred to above. All completed with personal messages to recipients, addressed and stamped. All Dad had to do was bung em in a letter box- ubiquitous at the time. But clearly the great procrastinatior had blown the deadline to a point that it would have been silly to send.
But he didn’t have the stomach to just piff em and this is where he came undone.
I sent some postcards from Peru in 1996.
They still haven’t arrived.
Got mine yesterday. Glad you enjoyed the hamster in chocolate sauce.
Lol
It’s guinea pig and mine didn’t have chocolate sauce – that might be what was missing as it tasted like crap.
I’m all for postcards.
The beauty of them is that it doesn’t matter how little you say on it, because what you think of the recipient is in the very sending.
The lack of obligation to send postcards (and Christmas cards) is one of the boons of modern life. It’s just a hassle I can happily live without.
Well ssince they are an anachronistic act @Gatz they are no longer an obligation. So freed of the burden of obligation you can say yes to life and scribble with joy.
When I went to NYC my mother had no idea if I’d arrived or not until a PC arrived 2 weeks later. Now a text does that particular job.
I’m a bit of a fan of Touchnote. You send a PC using your own photo + message. Not handwritten of course, but it’s posted in the destination country, so arrives pdq.
Also a fan of Postcards from the Past. All human life is there.
http://postcardfromthepast.co.uk/
Although I have no interest in giving or receiving postcards the Martin Parr book Postcard Century is a lovely thing to rummage through. Plenty of bargain second hand copies to be had https://www.amazon.co.uk/Postcard-Century-Cards-Their-Messages/dp/0500975906
You sent your mother a Personal Computer to prove you were in New York? Guess they didn’t have them back home.
In Spain there were lovely old black and white ones. Scenes of villlagers at work, gypsy musicians,, bullfight scenes from the 40s. Evocative.
At every french seaside town they sport a selection of “Voici les jolis balons” oneswhich I habitually mention whenever postcards come up in conversation. Maybe inland too, @lodestone-of-wrongness ? (Or @henpetsgi , I discover)
My pal Martin runs Postcards for Peace, a worthy venture I’m sure you will agree:
https://www.postcardsforpeace.org/
We always send one to my mum who treasures it, puts on display, shows friends etc. Very little effort to give so much pleasure.
My mum sends postcards inside envelopes, as she believes letters get to their destination faster. This may be true, given automatic address scanners, which probably work more easily when there isn’t other text to confuse the machine.
yebbut they don’t get sold with an envelope – that’s an effort too far.
My wife and I just sent postcards from Cefalu outside Palermo to NZ and Australia. We’ll let you know when they arrive. Posted from a touristy shoppe where they sold the stamps and had a post box outside and tracking info etc