Postal fever

It's been quite the week for getting parcels in the post. Some were expected, but one arrived today completely out of the blue. When Bronwyn came home we unwrapped it to discover this beautiful framed panoramic photo of Titahi Bay beach... just down the road from where Bronwyn grew up. The picture was sent by my brother Tim and his wife Megan, who wrote in the card, “Think of this as a no reason gift to remind you of home.” I could not be more warmed by such a wonderful and generous gift. This gift will be a treasured reminder for me also of the remarkable change in my relationship with Tim over recent years. We both agree we got off to a fairly rocky start in our first, oh, 15 to 20 years or so. We owe our parents an enormous debt of thanks as we realise how difficult we truly were as a combo in childhood. Fortunately things have changed. This picture is already assisting in much-needed decoration of our quite empty flat, and will have prominent place in every home we live in. Thank you Tim and Megan!

Other parcels received this week pale in meaningfulness compared to the Titahi Bay photo. They do warrant a mention however. Tuesday was a bumper day for me. At work during the day I received a parcel from Amazon. It contained the Wacom tablet and software previously mentioned, along with a German phrasebook and Lonely Planet Germany guide that I'd ordered at the same time. I arrived home to also find that a second-hand book I'd ordered via Amazon's marketplace system had also arrived... Stephen Lawhead's third book in the Pendragon Cycle, Arthur. As if this wasn't enough, there was one further delivery that had arrived. Some months ago I entered a competition on a web site of a local Wimbledon firm of Structural Engineers. They had a promotion advertised in the Wimbledon Fair booklet. Well, a couple of weeks ago they emailed me, many months later, to say I was one of their three winners! To be honest, I couldn't recall what the prize had been in the first place, but just arranged for them to deliver it. When it arrived on Tuesday it turned out to be a boxed bottle of Moët & Chandon, a rather pricey bottle of bubbles. We'll be saving that for a special occasion...