Oh, By the Time You Read This…

Dear Reader,

I hope my letter finds you well. I just wanted to tell you a little story about letter writing that spans a long time.

Way back when I was just fourteen years old I was a big fan of the fantastic Kate Bush. Each night before going to sleep I would put on one of my LPs on my record player and listen to Kate while I drifted to sleep And Dream of Sheep. 

I was a member of the KTBand fan club and each month I received, amongst other goodies, a newsletter with a penpal section. I had my details printed in one of these newsletters and even had some replies.

One was a boy around my age who lived in South Wales and wore blue shoes. The other was a lovely Swedish girl who sent me a photo of her standing on white stuff which she kindly explained to me was snow. 

I wrote to these two for a while but the letters soon petered out as we grew and changed and life moved on. I guess it didn’t help that I moved house three times in the next couple of years.

Many Years Later.

I grew up, I got married and moved again. 

During this time I took a job at a local petrol station and one day a man came in to write a check for his petrol. He wrote his address on the back and I couldn’t help but exclaim, ‘Oh, I used to live there!’ He lived in the house that I’d lived in as a Kate Bush loving 14 year old. We talked a while and as he was a regular customer he knew my name.

Then I left to have my baby, and then another baby and we moved house yet again. I didn’t go back to my old job.

One day while walking around the shops with my new baby I met a friend that I used to work with. She told me that the man who used to live in my old house had come into the petrol station with a letter for me! 

All the Way from Italy.

I went to pick up the letter and found that it had come all the way from Italy and was actually from someone who had found my address in the Penpal section of the Kate Bush magazine. 

I told my husband and seeing has the letter had taken so long to find me it seemed cruel not to answer. So I did. I wrote to the Italian guy and he wrote back. We didn’t really correspond again for a while.

Later, another letter dropped on my doormat from Italy. I wrote back again and we talked on the phone. He told me he was visiting England and, if I wished, we could meet.

We did meet and go for pizza in my hometown. We also went to the park and had a nice time together, despite him not really speaking English well and me not speaking Italian at all!

We didn’t correspond again for a long time, until one day a few years ago he popped up requesting me as a friend on Facebook. Again language is a barrier, but it’s nice that we have kept in touch for so long. All through a Penpal page from 38 years ago! 

Thank you for reading my story, I hope you will come back soon,

Best Wishes, 

Anne xx

Bonus points for anyone who can tell me which Kate Bush Song my Title for this post is from? The clue is in the picture!

And if Lollo should read this post, well then, I’ll take my shoes off and through them in the lake!

Blogtober18 prompt for today is Letters #WorldPostDay