Postcrossing Blog

Stories about the Postcrossing community and the postal world

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Have you been a good girl or boy this year? If so, it’s probably time you wrote to Santa and let him know! :)

In many countries around the world, writing to Santa Claus is a big part of holiday’s fun for the little ones. We want to do our best to keep this lovely letter-writing tradition alive, so every year, we ask you to help us compile an updated list of addresses where these letters can be mailed to. 8287990618 b742914ddf z

Here’s the list of Santa addresses for 2015, so far:

Check out where to send your letters to Santa in your country, and pass it along to the parents and children you know, to help keep the tradition going!

And if your country has a special address for Santa which isn’t featured here, just post the link in the comments and we’ll be happy to add it.

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Once again, we give the Little Mail Carriers center stage, so that they can finish telling us about their adventures in Leicestershire (here’s part one of their adventures in the UK, in case you missed it)!

Naturally, we wanted to take part in a Postcrossing meeting whilst we were in England, which we did with our host, her sister and cousin. They have quite a collection of postcards between them and we liked picking out cards to send which showed typically British images. Our favourite was a postcard of William and Kate; the closest we got to meeting any Royalty whilst on our visit!

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! - part 2

During our stay, on 9th September 2015, Her Majesty The Queen became Britain’s longest serving monarch, having been on the throne for 63 years and 7 months. This surpasses the reign of her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria. We were really interested to learn more about Queen Elizabeth II and her reign and lots of the newspapers had special editions on this day. We were also very excited to hear that Royal Mail have released a limited edition First Class Definitive stamp in regal purple. The stamp is usually red but will stay purple for 12 months to mark this historic occasion – cool!

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! - part 2

Of course wherever we are in the world we like to check out the mail boxes and no trip to the UK would be complete without seeing some of those iconic red post boxes! We were lucky to see a few during our visit, including a traditional pillar box, a very old post box in ">Birmingham, and even a miniature replica (almost the perfect size for us!).

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! - part 2 The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! - part 2

Our favourites though were these two very special gold post boxes in Stratford-upon-Avon. Royal Mail has painted more than 100 of its post boxes gold to celebrate every GB gold medal won during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The post boxes will remain permanently gold to mark the achievements of the athletes and the historic Games – wow! These two are in honour of the appropriately named paralympian rower James Roe.

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! - part 2

We loved our day trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, where we enjoyed all things Shakespeare, including visiting the Shakespeare Centre and Shakespeare’s Birthplace, posing with a statue of Hamlet, meeting a giant Shakespeare teddy and stocking up on British souvenirs! We also enjoyed watching boats in the sunshine on the canal.

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! - part 2 east midlands19 The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! - part 2

On the final day of our visit, we were treated to a trip to Cadbury World in Birmingham, home of the world famous Cadbury chocolate!

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! - part 2

As soon as we got out of the car, we could smell the delicious chocolate in the air! There was plenty of chocolate to be found inside of course, as well as the chance to make some new chocolatey friends; the Cadbury Buttons owl, a purple and white cow and even Bertie Bassett himself!

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! - part 2 The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! - part 2

Phew, what an exciting trip! We had a great time visiting the UK and can’t wait to go back again soon.

Our heartfelt thank you to Sophie (aka FlyingGiraffe) for hosting the little guys and taking them on so many adventures!

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Good news, everyone! After a short hiatus, the Little Mail Carriers have written back from the UK, where they were hosted by Sophie (aka FlyingGiraffe). They loved it so much that we’ve had to break their stay in 2 posts! :) You can read all about the first part of their journey below, and stay tuned for more adventures in Leicestershire!

Hello again, everyone!

In September we visited the UK, staying in the county of Leicestershire, in the East Midlands region of England. We stayed in a village and our first job on arrival was to help in our host’s vegetable garden, where we picked home-grown produce such as rhubarb, tomatoes and some purple carrots! We found out that traditionally all carrots were purple; the modern day orange carrot wasn’t cultivated until the end of the 16th century by Dutch growers – interesting! We especially enjoyed climbing up the apple tree to pick some lovely English apples which we then used to bake (and eat!) a delicious apple cake; it was worth all of our hard work!

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK!

Bitten by the baking bug, we also helped to make and decorate some delicious vanilla cupcakes which we sold at a charity bake sale held at our host’s workplace to raise money for the charity Jeans for Genes. We even helped make some little jeans out of fondant icing to decorate the cupcakes; they suit Little Paulo don’t you think?!

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK!

It was great to visit our host’s office; she works part time at an architectural company. Whilst we were there, we were interested to look at some drawings. Little Ana also helped answer the phone and Little Paulo had a go at some audio typing – it’s harder than it looks!

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK!

We enjoyed exploring the Leicestershire countryside, including going on lots of autumnal walks with our host’s dog, a Jack Russell named Ruby, who helped us sniff out some brilliant conkers! Public footpaths in England are marked with distinctive yellow signs so you always know which way to go!

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK!

Apparently Leicestershire is well known for many foods, including Red Leicester cheese, Stilton cheese and Pork Pie from the town of Melton Mowbray. Pork Pies are a traditional British meat pie made of chopped meat and pork jelly sealed in a crust pastry. They were tasty but very filling for little people like us!

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK!

Our host’s local town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch has lots of interesting things to see and do and we really enjoyed our visit to Ashby Castle, originally a Norman Manor House which is now in ruins. There is a tower to climb and an underground passage to walk through. To round off our visit, we visited the gift shop where we bought postcards of the castle (of course!) and some very special English Heritage stamps which feature images of the castle and are especially designed for use on international postcards – perfect!

The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK! The Little Mail Carriers in Leicestershire, UK!

Their adventure will continue in a few days… stay tuned!

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The Galápagos islands are known for their diverse wildlife, studied by Charles Darwin on his trip around the world. Every year, many people visit the archipelago to get a glimpse of the giant turtoises, penguins or unique bird species… but also to send and pick up mail!

It all started a couple of centuries ago, back when the island was regularly visited by whaling ships. The ships stayed at sea for long stretches of time, often years, and so communication between the fishermen and their families was difficult. To solve this problem, in 1793, Captain James Colnett established a post office of sorts in Floreana island — a simple wooden barrel where mail could be left to be picked by other visitors. Ships often stopped on Floreana island to do repair works or pick up water and food, so sailors started taking the mail which was destined to their home ports with them, hand-delivering the missives to their intended recipients by hand.

6115186004 bef9b1b707 z Photo by claudiah on Flickr.

The place became known as Post Office Bay and to this day, visitors still rely in the kindness of strangers to bring their letters and postcards home (mailing items with stamps is considered cheating!) — and to tell the story of how these missives made it home! :)

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There’s no place like home… unless you take a tumble and the doctor orders you to stay put for a few months, right? This is what happened to Lynn’s friend Lucy earlier this year. To cheer her up, Lynn enlisted the help of her “other friend” Morris Mouse, who agreed to send Lucy some postcards or letters from his travels.

Turns out, Morris is a great artist, and his missives are beautifully illustrated and filled with witty humour! Have a look:

The Postal Adventures of Morris Mouse The Postal Adventures of Morris Mouse

Morris visits some of his friends around the world, joining cricket matches, conservation studies, or just distracting the odd cat. Everywhere he goes, there seems to be an adventure waiting for him, and he writes Lucy about it on old postcards, letters, book pages and covers… anything he can get his tiny paws on! :)

The Postal Adventures of Morris Mouse

You can catch up with Morris’ delightful missives on the blog Lynn keeps for him at morrismouse.wordpress.com or even get in touch, if you’d like.

We look forward to his next adventures and wish a speedy recovery to Lucy as well! :)