Postcrossing Blog

Today is Earth Day, and we thought a good way to celebrate the day would be to tell you about an event held some time ago, where postcrossers came together to help plant a pine forest in central Portugal. Enjoy this sunny report!

After a hiatus of two years due to the pandemic, it was time to get together again to expand Postcrossing’s tiny forest! So in early February this year, a group of postcrossers gathered once more to plant trees and reforest a part of the old Pinhal de Leiria, an historical forest from the 13th century which was mostly destroyed in a disastrous fire some years ago. It will take years and years for the forest to regain its previous splendor… but you know what they say: “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.”

This time, the plot we replanted was in the dunes nearer the Atlantic ocean, which gave it nice views over the sea. (I like to think of all the tiny pine trees growing with a sea view!) All of us moved along the previously plowed rows, taking care not to damage any trees that were already growing on their own. All morning we made holes, put little trees in them and covered them up so that they were protected from the fierce Atlantic winds. Here are some pictures:

We planted around 700 tiny maritime pine trees, also known as “Pinus pinaster”. Maritime pine is a relatively fast grower, and native to the Mediterranean, so it likes our hot summers and rainy winters. It’s also a great tree to hold onto the dunes and help stabilize coastal regions. Talking to the organizers of the reforestation initiative, they told us the seeds that sprouted these baby pines had been sent from the forest that existed here to France before the fire, and were now returning home to be planted here again. Hurray for seed banks!

After a picnic and some coffee, it was time to go back home, with the feeling of a job well done. Maybe something to consider, for a future meeting in your country? We invite you to roll up your sleeves and go for it! 🌲 And if that’s not possible but you’d still like some ideas of things you can do to make this hobby greener, check our Towards a greener planet page! 🌲

PS: All the pictures in this post are by Tetyana (aka tatytrofamets), who did an excellent job reporting on this fantastic day!

Did you watch Sesame Street growing up? It was a big part of our childhood in Portugal, and stumbling on clips with familiar songs and stories is something we’ll never get tired of. This week, we bring you two videos from the US version of Sesame Street which are all about mail and will maybe cause some nostalgia, for those who grew up with them. 😊

First comes “Big Bird & Snuffy Mail a Letter”, which in its funny way helps kids learn the different steps of mailing a letter. You’d think it was easy… but there’s actually a lot to it, especially if you’ve never done it before! With some help from the adults and children of the neighborhood, Big Bird and Snuffy succeed in getting it done:

And here’s another one titled “I am a letter”, from 1970 — a song that is all about mail and mail delivery!

If you watched Sesame Street, did you know these clips? Were they were recreated with local characters in your country’s version of the series? Or, do you remember other clips about mail from TV series you used to watch? We love discovering these, so please do share them with us on the comments!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

Learning a new language is a common goal, so we think that HM’s suggestion of sharing what language you’re learning, or the languages you’d like to learn, should be fascinating!

Personally, I speak a little French and always mean to practice: I have a copy of The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien) in French, and I periodically open up apps like Duolingo and Clozemaster to practice a bit… but that’s mostly just because that’s the language I learned in school. I know my accent is terrible, and there’s not much reason in my day-to-day life for me to speak any French, so it’s more of a mental exercise than anything.

It’s probably not too surprising though that I’d love to learn to speak Welsh. My wife used Duolingo to get some vocabulary, and is now using an app called Say Something in Welsh to practice more. I haven’t joined in yet, but… it’s tempting! I’d be starting from zero, really (I can count to ten in Welsh, and say a couple of phrases by rote), and I’m not sure I have the time yet. One day!

How about you? What languages are you studying, and which ones would you like to learn? You can share your thoughts in the comments, and/or use it as a prompt for something to write on your postcards!

Have you ever heard of Malta? It is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea, between Italy and Libya, and despite its small size, it is a very densely populated country, filled with interesting history… including postal history! The Little Mail Carriers begged us to go visit, and so we sent them on to meet Lara Bugeja, the museum’s curator. Here is their report!

Ħello everyone! 👋 We arrived in Valletta, Malta’s capital on a beautifully sunny day and made our way to the Malta Postal Museum. We stopped outside for a photo and to admire the Baroque facade of this converted Valletta home. Lara mentioned everyone at the museum was delighted to see us as they had never had anybody so small visit!

Our first stop was in one of the galleries where an exhibition of landscape paintings was being set up. Did you know that the Postal Museum also functions as a Art Hub? We were lucky to see this nice exhibition coming together, from our perch on a wonderful sunset.

But we came here to see stamps and letters, so Lara gave us a whistle-stop tour of the museum. It was so much fun deciphering the script on the archive of letters, and admiring the wax seals! Most letters were in French, but some were in Italian, English and a few were in Maltese. The earliest form of postal service in the island dates from the early 1530s, when business letters were carried by small sailing vessels between Malta and Sicily.

We then hopped up onto one of their old postal counters and played for a bit, pretending to buy and sell stamps. The Museum has a fully functional post office, which in the past few years even had special postmarks for the World Postcard Day!

On a screen there was a video playing about mail distribution during the times of the Malta plague epidemic, so we got to learn about the deadliest event in Maltese history, which took place between December 1675 and August 1676. At the time, it was thought that paper could transport the disease, so mail was quarantined and disinfected. Although the video was interesting, we were horrified by the sheer number of rats that poured out of the screen… quite scary for us, being so small!

For something lighter, we decided to climb to the top of one of the museum’s motorcycles! The James ‘Captain’ 200cc motorcycle was used in the 1960s by postmen delivering to the more rural and inaccessible areas of Malta and Gozo. We managed to get up there safely, but it took us a while… Then, since we were already at it, we did the same with the bicycle near the entrance – and once we made it to the top, we had a good rest and brought out a picnic lunch!

After all these activities, we were quite exhausted, so we left to have a very well-deserved rest. Everyone in the museum was super nice, and we were delighted to meet them!

Thank you Lara, for taking care of the little ones and showing them the Malta Postal Museum! Into their padded envelope they go, and who knows where they will land next… 😉

When I posted my last review, I promised the next would be about Emmi Itäranta’s The Moonday Letters. I still plan to review that novel, but in honor of Letter Writing Month last month, I thought I’d pause for a moment and review the book I just finished: Simon Garfield’s To The Letter: A Curious History of Correspondence.

Garfield’s history opens with a story about the writer, and about his interest in a particular set of historical letters being auctioned off, but from there it goes all over the place. It discusses the Roman letters found at Vindolanda, the developing tradition of letters in Rome, and surveys history through discussing famous correspondents from Madame de Sévigné to Ted Hughes, and discussing how society reacted to letter-writing (such as the letter-writing manuals so common at one time).

Interspersed between each chapter, though, is my favourite part: a series of letters between a soldier named Chris and a woman back home named Bessie, written during the Second World War. Through their letters you come to know them, and even with such a small fraction of their letters included, you come to feel for them as they fall in love, and hope they managed to overcome the odds. The letters are a beautiful example of the power of letters to reveal character and allow someone to bare their heart, and I’m excited to discover now that there is a full volume of them available, My Dear Bessie.

Garfield makes this power clear as well, picking out passages from the other letters he discusses to highlight his points. One part that stuck out to me was the discussion of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, through Hughes’ own letters. (As a warning, though, that chapter can be quite upsetting, given the circumstances of Plath’s death, and given Hughes’ emotions about it as expressed in his letters.)

The whole thing made me wonder what my letters say about me, to be honest! I’ve always written letters here and there, and at the moment I write to my grandmother every week. It made me want to work a little more at it, and see if I can make my letters as lively as some of the examples here.

To the Letter was definitely an enjoyable read for me; I was more interested in some of the famous letter-writers discussed than others, admittedly, but Garfield’s enthusiasm for letter-writing—and for peeking in at the lives of people as revealed by their letters—is infectious. It’s a bit of a chunky book, but it flew by—especially with Chris and Bessie’s letters with each chapter, and wanting to know how things ended for them!

Next time, I promise, I’ll take a look at The Moonday Letters—before I forget the whole book, since it’s been a while since I read it! And in the meantime, don’t forget you can tell me about books about letters (fiction or non-fiction) in this topic on the forum (you may need to browse the forums a little before you can post in it, though!).