Friendship is one of those strange things you have to work at, which changes from one day to the next, which rises and falls according to our emotions, our environment, reactions and opinions of others and, above all, our level of contact. Maintaining a friendship with a person you have known personally, who is no…

It seems to be a strange trait in humans, but we love looking into the dark side of things, exploring the depths of the soul for sinister mannerisms and peculiarities, attributes which explain our behaviour – after something has happened – or which clarify thoughts and desires which tend to be slightly off the mainstream…

If you cannot attract someone’s attention in the first sentence, you might just as well go home and give up on all your life plans right from that moment onward: there is no hope for you; you have failed; you will be destitute for the rest of your natural-born life, have no friends and die…

I keep all of my memories in a box. Well, that isn’t quite true, but I do have several boxes which contain nothing but letters I have received from my pen friends over the last year, and also a few boxes stored away which hold even older ones, from the Eighties and Nineties. And, of…

One of the wonderful things about letter writing is that occasionally a missive lands on your mat – or in the mailbox in my case – from a sender you do not recognise, have never heard of, have never suspected existed. Some people go out of their way to advertise themselves, while others simply take…

One of the highlights of my day, at least Monday to Saturday, is walking out of my house, the cat mewing at my heels because she knows I am going for a walk without her, turning right on the main street, and heading into town and the small substitute post office tucked into a corner…

There are some things which are slow, and some which simply take their time, and are often all the better for the extra waiting time involved. I must admit to a certain amount of surprise that a letter written by you takes eleven days to leave the facility, but I suppose everything has to run…

I find it hard, having lived alone in a large house for so long, to imagine what it must be like to have constant noise all around you, to be unable to find a moment of peace and quiet, to be surrounded by other people day and night. In my early military years, when I…

It is often said that people should never mix business and pleasure together, but mainly by those who do not understand the meaning of leisure, and who most certainly do not appreciate what is available to them in their limited free time when visiting new areas, cities, meeting new people. Such a mix is, however,…

No matter which words you use, no matter how clear you believe your description is, there will always be someone, somewhere, who knows better, or who claims, by reading between the lines, to know your desires and dreams far better than you do. And there will always be those who believe that you don’t mean…