Priscilla Brown considers picture postcards

 

Will ambitious lawyer Olivia listen to her heart or her head before it's too late?

(She does send picture postcards.)

Find more about Hot Ticket and my other contemporary romances at

https://bookswelove/net/authors/brown-priscilla-romance

Recently I visited the exhibition Carte-o-Mania at the Australian National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. It shows 'cartes-de-visit', pocket-size portrait photographs which were taken and collected in Australia in the second half of the nineteenth century. This concept began in 1860 when Queen Victoria and her family sat for a photographer, and then made the photos available for sale to the public. After this, people also in Australia began to acquire their own photos to hand or send to friends, a kind of 'remember me', and collecting these became popular. Incidentally, around the time Queen Victoria initiated this fashion, picture postcards started to appear in Europe and USA, and collecting them began as a hobby.

This exhibition stirred my interest in today's picture postcards. I love them! When on holiday, I enjoy choosing cards to send, and receiving cards give me pleasure.  I pin these cards onto a corkboard where they stay until the board is so full that they start to fall off, when I remove the oldest one or two that I can part with. Some have been there years, and I still enjoy looking at them. But are picture postcards a dying tradition?  

Sending these postcards does take effort. First, to find them. In a tourist spot, this may not be difficult, though I've found that sometimes it's necessary to unearth them from the back of some shop selling assorted tourist merchandise as if the shop doesn't consider them worthy of better display. If there is adequate amount of choice, I want to match the card to the intended recipient, a picture which may appeal to an interest, for example historical, specifically scenic, mode of transport or related to a hobby.Then time spent at a cafe with a drink of choice is perfect for the writing. I believe a hand-written card brings a human touch to communication, makes the recipient feel important knowing you're thinking of them.

Finding a post office can be a challenge; sometimes it's easier to take the cards home and post there. It Italy, using my elementary Italian, I bought and wrote the cards, got lost on my way to the post office, bought the stamps and posted the cards. Back home, I discovered no one had received them. Did they ever leave Italy? Perhaps in my hurry to catch a ferry, had I dropped them into the litter bin which I recalled was next to the post box on the wharf? Ouch!

I have three friends each living in a different country, who are all travellers and wonderful at sending postcards. Each always tries to find a card which they know I will enjoy; recently I received a card from Brazil depicting a bird called a Pantanal, one from Sarawak (Malaysia) of a baby orang utan, and from France of a dignified chateau. These senders hand-write personalised messages which I appreciate. I do the same for them.

But are we in the minority?

My home is in a part of regional New South Wales which attracts tourists for its history and varied natural environment. The Visitor Centre holds a good selection of postcards depicting local scenes; I asked staff about the sales of these. "Noticeably declining" was the comment. "People aren't much interested anymore."

I took a straw poll of colleagues who travel frequently. "Always send cards to my grandparents who can't travel now and they love getting them"..."Postcards? Do people still send them? Why don't they use their phones?"..."Never sent one, I take videos"..."I like to send to close family and friends and most send to me"..."Couldn't be bothered, would take too long."

I know it's quicker and easier to take phone photos and share straightaway, or use a digital postcard  app. It may be tempting to send several photos of your travel companion or a selfie at for example the Eiffel Tower; if this is the main method of communication, for me it feels uninspired. Rather than any number of phone photos, I would prefer to receive one hand-written postcard with a little local information, indicating that the sender has spent time and thought on it. However, I do understand that not everyone is as comfortable as I am putting experiences into words (nor is addicted to spending time in cafes!) And I admit I am a technophobe. 

Enjoy your reading, Priscilla

Paragraph 1, reference:  National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Australia

http://www.bwlpublishing.ca

https://priscillabrownauthor.com

ONE OF THE JOYS OF RVING IS THAT NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE, YOU ARE HOME.BY MARGARET HANNA

One of the joys of RVing is that, no matter where you are, you are home. Same bed, same dishes, same stuff. Only the scenery and the neighbours (and neighbourhood) change.

BUT . . .

The TV and magazine commercials that extol the joy and euphoria of RVing don’t tell you about what can go wrong. To wit: our two misadventures this winter.

(Mis)Adventure #1: We decided to go to San Carlos on the upper end of the Sea of Cortez (a.k.a. the Gulf of California) in Sonora, Mexico, this winter. Driving south from Nogales to San Carlos requires transiting the city of Hermosillo, a metropolis of some 700,000+ inhabitants. The highway through town is narrow and congested. Traffic goes hell-bent-for-leather fast; like there is no tomorrow; like accidents don’t happen and if they do, well, so be it. Did I mention that the semi-trailers think they own the road? The route is not well-signed, either. We had successfully, but not without some panic and rapid last-minute changes of lanes, negotiated the oh-my-gosh-is-this-where-we-turn-it-must-be-because-all-the-semi-trailers-are-turning-too section of Hermosillo, when WHAM!

First, some information:

A Mexican speed bump is called a tope (pronounced toe-pee). They come in all shapes and sizes. They’re everywhere – the entrances to towns or school zones, at important intersections, or “just because.”

You quickly learn to fear topes. You have to crawl over them. Carefully. S-l-o-w-l-y.

Most are marked. Some are not. It’s the unmarked ones that get you.

Back to the story.

We were out of the worst part of Hermosillo. Our heart rate was beginning to slow down. We were going maybe 40 km/hr (25 mph), tops, when WHAM! We hit an unmarked tope. The truck went KA-WHUMP! The trailer went KA-WHUMP!

We said, “Oh, @#$%^%$#@! That’s not good!”

We couldn’t stop. There was nowhere to stop. An hour later, we pulled into a Pemex station.

We opened the trailer. We took a deep breath. We went in.

We saw devastation.

A cupboard door had flown open, spewing glasses, glass bowls, plates everywhere. Do I need to point out that the glassware had shattered? Into a million pieces? Everywhere?

The wooden knife block had leapt three feet from its spot and had landed on top of our beautiful, hand-made ceramic garlic keeper that was now in pieces. Spices had flown out of the rack and broken, and spices were strewn everywhere, mixed in with the glass splinters. Milk – Milk? – was running all over the floor. We opened the fridge door – the plastic milk jug had cracked.

No point in trying to clean up the mess now; there was still an hour to go before getting to San Carlos and we had to get there before dark. We closed up the trailer and carried on.

It took us many hours to clean up the mess once we had set up the trailer. Fortunately, we had cold beer in the fridge.

Two-and-a-half months later, we still find the odd piece of glass.

(Mis)Adventure #2: We were en route from Las Cruces, NM, to Ajo, AZ. We stopped at the Texas Canyon rest stop, just east of Benson AZ, to stretch our legs and take advantage of the facilities. When I came back, I did the usual walk-around the trailer just to make sure everything was fine. I walked down the passenger (door) side of the trailer. Yep, everything’s still locked, shut, etc. I walked around the back and up the driver (street) side.

Hmmm, what’s that on the window? No, wait! That’s, that’s . . .

My brain could not process what my eyes were seeing. There was no window. It was gone! All that was left were the hinge at the top, with glass fragments adhering, and the opening mechanism at the bottom, also with glass fragments adhering. I stuck my finger through where the window was supposed to be and touched . . . the window screen!

WTF!

I saw DH (short for “Dear Hubby”) exiting the men’s room. I walked towards him. “Our window’s broken,” I said. “What?” he said.

Well, to make a long story short, we called an RV repair shop in Tucson. The man there was very sympathetic but said he couldn’t guarantee when, if ever, he’d get a replacement window. We went to Ace Hardware, bought a piece of plexiglass and taped it over the gaping hole (using the really tough tape made by a manufacturer I will not name but that goes by the name of one of the great apes).

We did such a good job of taping on the plexiglass that we’re not sure if we will ever order a new (and probably really expensive) window. Oh, maybe we should.

The moral of the story is this: Boring trips yield no stories worthy of retelling. So go RV-ing. Who knows what adventures you will encounter.

P.S. My grandparents, Abe and Addie Hanna, had a few (mis)adventures of their own when they traveled to the homestead in 1910. Here’s a teaser:

We had a dreadful fright that first afternoon. We were travelling through a very hilly region and going down a hill when there was a snapping sound from under the wagon and suddenly the wagon pitched forward and pushed the horses ahead faster than they wanted to go. I can’t remember if I screamed. I almost fell off but managed to hang onto the wagon for dear life. Abe was shouting “Whoa! “and pulling at the wagon brake which seemed to do no good at all. Fortunately, it wasn’t a big hill, and Abe managed to guide the horses down the slope and stop safely. My heart was pounding. I got off the wagon, but my legs were shaking so much I could barely walk.

“What happened?” I asked.

Read what did happen in Chapter Four: “Along the Pole Trail,” in Our Bull’s Loose in Town!” Tales from the Homestead.

The Antics of Anthony

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Here comes Anthony again--because like a new baby in days of yore--this kitty takes up much of our time and attention here at the Waldron domicile. I think the first thing out of my mouth every morning is either "No! Stop That!" or "Get out there!" or just plain "OUCH," when he ducks under the covers and bites my toes, which in his hallucinatory kitten's world, must appear as tasty little sausages. Tony's not "bad," not any more than a toddler or a puppy, just filled with what the 18th Century called "Animal Spirits" or maybe what the stock market types call "irrational exuberance."

How calm and sweet he looks!

Whatever you call it, our Anthony's got it in spades--boundless energy, curiosity and Cat-itude. We've had a lot of cats over the last 50+ years, but this one, I have to say, is unique. Of course, you can counter that with Colette's "There are no ordinary cats," but this boy definitely has star quality.
Too bad I've got no one here to video his Surya-Bonaly-type back flips, his in-air-twists and seven foot leaps onto shelves no kitty should be able to reach, or we'd have a new internet sensation.
(If you don't remember this incredible athlete, check her out here.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UdVcEZZ6so




We get a daily work-out because he keeps Kitty Mom & Dad on their toes--and/or leaping out of their seats to grab what has just been bowled out of the way when Rocket Cat dashes across a window ledge or a table or the kitchen counter. Glasses of coke, water, house plants, framed pictures, Mom's stacks of paper or books--go over in the twinkling of an eye--dash, splash, crash--when "Ant-Knee" from Long Island is on a rip.

Tony says, "I sits where I wants, when I wants."

One morning, when particularly wound up, he ran upstairs after me, rushed into the bathroom and leapt straight onto the window sill which held a pair of forty year old cactuses. I think he was back out the door again in a single rebounding leap, even before the pots hit the floor, dumping the old fellows and their gravelly soil all over the floor in a giant prickly mess. Sometimes, when those "animal spirits" are high, he'll fling himself from the floor onto the walls and scrabble along as if he's a motorcyclist doing a circus "wall of death" stunt.


He wants to taste everything we are eating, and, as you can see, from his place on the counter where we are assembling our lunch, this is pretty easy. He loves cheese and has even assayed my curried kidney beans on brown rice with broccoli. (In end, it wasn't a favorite.) Tony much prefers swiping meat off the counter when Chris is attempting to get it into the sauté pan. Smacking cats doesn't work particularly well, although with him it seems to have a temporary effect in getting him to go away, it doesn't take him long to forgive us and return to whatever naughty thing he was doing.
The only cure is imprisonment in an upstairs "suite" where he has a bed, a box and plenty of munchies and water.

All bowls, pots, and pans are subject to footy inspection

A few days back, he launched himself from the top of the fridge onto the counter, scattering plates and dishes filled with food. This did not please his hoo-mans at all, and I carried him upstairs to the "slammer" while he gnawed on my arm and (alternately) my pigtail to let me know how cross with me he was. After all, his magnificent six foot leap should have garnered applause; moreover, he hadn't even begun his tasting tour of our lunch!

Willy-Yum and Tony (sort of) share a spot on the cat rack;

Still, Tony can purr, kiss, and cuddle with the best of 'em. We've never had so much creative mischief and charm bundled up into a single hyper active fur friend. Tony's a feline trip we're glad we've taken.
😺😺😺✌✌✌

~~Juliet Waldron
See all my historical novels @
https://www.julietwaldron.com

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