527 – A Lake District map

Card no 527 - Joyce 

A map of the Lake District 

Country Card Sent From: England 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Barrow-in-Furness 

Date Received: 30th April 2013 

Distance Travelled: 57 miles 

Time Taken: 1 days 

This was a direct swap with Joyce and it seemed quite strange getting a map of the Lake District because I used to send cards just like this in the 1960s when I spent so much time in the Lake District.

The stamp was Jane Austen one about which I shall blog sometime...

.  

522 – A vintage card

Card no 522 - Lynne 

From Lynne at Papermash 

Country Card Sent From: England 

Place that Card Sender Lives: - 

Date Received: 27th April 2013 

Distance Travelled: - miles 

Time Taken: - days 

 A postcard that had a message on from Lynne at Papermash.co.uk, accompanying an order.  

483 – Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, England

Cards no 483 - Laura 

Canterbury Cathedral – a WHS 

Country Card Sent From: Great Britain 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Canterbury 

Date Received: 6th April 2013 

Distance Travelled: 227 miles 

Time Taken: 1 day 

This card was a direct swap which I asked Laura for so as to get one of the Canterbury WHS. She kindly obliged with this lovely card.

Canterbury - the World Heritage Site 

Canterbury, in Kent, has been the seat of the spiritual head of the Church of England for almost five centuries. St Martin's Church, St Augustine's Abbey and the cathedral are directly and tangibly associated with the history of the introduction of Christianity to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The influence of the Benedictine abbey of St Augustine was decisive throughout the high Middle Ages in England. The influence of this monastic centre and its scriptorium extended far beyond the boundaries of Kent and Northumbria. Christ Church Cathedral, especially the east sections, is a unique artistic creation. The beauty of its architecture is enhanced by a set of exceptional stained glass windows which constitute the richest collection in the United Kingdom.

Within the urban perimeter of Canterbury, three distinct cultural properties are on the World Heritage List: the modest St Martin's Church; the ruins of St Augustine's Abbey; and the superb Christ Church Cathedral, a breathtaking mixture of Romanesque and Perpendicular Gothic, where Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in 1170. These three monuments are milestones in the religious history of the regions of Great Britain before the Reformation.

Canterbury Cathedral 

 Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian struc-tures in England and forms part of the World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Its formal title is the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Christ at Canterbury. Founded in 597, the cathedral was completely rebuilt from 1070 to 1077.

The east end was greatly enlarged at the beginning of the twelfth century, and largely rebuilt in the Gothic style following a fire in 1174, with significant eastward extensions to accommodate the flow of pilgrims visiting the shrine of Thomas Becket, the archbishop who was murdered in the cathedral in 1170. The Norman nave and transepts survived until the late fourteenth century, when they were demolished to make way for the present structures. The Goddess Wiki has an extensive and interesting article about the cathedral.

It was strange to receive a stamp that I have been sending out!

It is part of the Dickens set issued in 2012 –

455 – A British pillar box

Card no 455 - Danielle 

A British Elizabeth II double pillar box 

Country Card Sent From: USA 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Omaha, Nebraska 

Date Received: 26th March 2013 

Distance Travelled: 4,122 miles 

Time Taken: 10 days 

The UK has a wide variety of different pillar, lamp and wall letter boxes so it was by pure chance that Danielle sent me one that showed the type my cards to her are often posted in. This is a photo of it done in the same style as Danielle's postcard.

Because I don’t postcross with people on the UK I don’t get British pillar boxes. Perhaps I should start including the UK in my postcrossing.

This was the stamp - for once the beautiful new round USA stamp was not obliterated by the franking process. 

Discworld

“Saw this and thought of you!”  Should I be insulted or flattered?  Was I being likened to a hairy monster or did Partner-who-loves-tea recognise the background to this picture.  Whatever - she sent me this from home while I was staying with GB this year.

 Postcard - 118

For people who are not Discworld fans I should perhaps explain that in Terry Pratchett’s remarkable Discworld series of novels the librarian is turned into an Orang-utan by an unfortunate piece of magic.

The Librarian appeared in the first novel of the series, ‘The Colour of Magic’, and was transformed into an orang-utan in ‘The Light Fantastic’ as the Octavo fired a beam of magic upwards. On discovering that being an orang-utan had certain advantages for a librarian - he can climb up to high shelves, for example - he refused to be transformed back into a human and has remained an orang-utan ever since. The other wizards have gradually become used to the situation, to the extent that, from ‘Night Watch’: “if someone ever reported that there was an orang-utan in the Library, the wizards would probably go and ask the Librarian if he'd seen it.”

I should warn you, in case you meet him any time, that an Orang-utan is an Ape.  He is therefore likely to rip your head from your shoulders if you make the mistake of calling him a monkey.  In my librarian days there were other reasons I should have occasionally liked to rip readers' heads off but we won't go into that...