Penpals

Thought it was about time for a new blog.

When I was about 14 or 15 (or maybe even younger) I applied to a penpals agency for penfriends. I can't remember who suggested it to me, but the idea appealed as I enjoyed writing and friends overseas were less likely to be annoying and might even be interested in me.

I had two come back to me - a girl from Sweden, Kamilla; and a boy from Italy, Paulo. Paulo straight away asked me about a million questions about where I lived and, me being me, I had no idea of any of the answers. I didn't even know where the town hall was at that point, didn't know that you could actually get postcards of Sale, didn't know the population of Sale, etc etc. Of course I could have gone out and found the answers but I wasn't really interested! I wanted to know about this person, not particularly about where they lived although anything they knew would have been interesting. Needless to say, my apathy culled that potential relationship.

The other penpal, Kamilla, well she was different. She wanted to know about me, and I wanted to know about her. We wrote letters so long they ran to several pages, took months to write said letters, rarely got around to putting anything in them that we said we would (it usually ended up a case of "I'd better post this now before it gets any longer") and got to know each other pretty well, considering she was in Sweden and I was in England.

When I was 16 we plotted that I should go and visit her for a fortnight. Eventually we told our parents of this idea, and they took over the planning for us. I'd never been abroad (except when I was a toddler) and so to have my first experience of travelling on my own to involve 4 airports (2 changes) in 2 foreign countries was a bit worrying for my parents. Anyway I made it, had a grand old time, learnt a tiny bit of Swedish, and came home a slightly more mature person. Possibly.

We kept writing to each other but, as with most things, over time we gradually stopped writing as often - even if, when we did write, the letters were still just as long and filled with the same kind of everyday stuff that we both found interesting - and eventually, we just seemed to stop writing.

Now though, thanks to the wonders of the internet, we got back in touch and last week she came to visit us in our tiny cottage in the English countryside (which looks, apparently, quite similar to Swedish countryside! Fancy that) - 12 or 13 years after we first started writing to each other.

More to come!