"Well Travelled".

Railway Cottage is the appealing name of a wonderful blog, written by Kath. I love her endearing style as she describes her creative life in a wonderful cottage with her family and her pets.

A few weeks ago, Kath hosted a give away. A give away with a riddle. She posted a series of pictures of one of her cats and asked us to guess what the initials; D.P, that made up the cats name, stood for. On the pictures, one could see a very cute, white cat with irregular black spots. The winner would receive a lovely tea towel with images of different cat breeds.

I am always ready for a challenge and even though I rarely (never) win, I thought I would give this a try. Very quickly I did realize though that this challenge was harder than I thought and going in the same directions as many others, guessing anything from dots, dotty to dark patch, I decided to get help from the most clever man I know.
My Irishman.

As I introduced him to Kath's page, he took one look at the site and within seconds proclaimed "Disruptive Pattern. As in camouflage." Yes indeed, I knew in an instant this was correct and immediately posted my winning answer in the comment section on Kath's post. I think she enjoyed the way the guessing came about as much as me, and she also later explained why the cats name was D.P.

But, this story is not over yet. Kath posted the parcel containing my prize on the 12th of last month. She only lives about 1000 km west of me and the normal delivery time should be about three days. Five days at the most. When two weeks passed and the parcel still did not arrive, we were both getting slightly worried.
As the third week was reaching its end, I considered the possibility that I misspelled my address or that the package simply got lost. How unfortunate, but these things do happen.

My hope was slowly fading, but then last Friday the package was waiting in the mailbox for me as I got home from work. As I looked upon the stamps next to the address label, it became very quickly obvious to me why the delivery extended to almost twenty days.
Next to a perfectly clear, readable and very correct address, a big postal stamp all across the label stated:

Missent To Vancouver, B.C. CANADA
Envoyee Par Erreur A Vancouver, B.C. CANADA

I was laughing out loud reading this. The parcel surely traveled half way around the world to get here. Instead of 1000 km, it traveled almost 17 000 km. "Well Travelled" as Kath put it in her mail. And ain't that the truth.

Pink Checkers.

I have previously disclosed that I receive weekly surface mail from Ireland, containing small presents and sweets.

This week the package contained the most appealing cakes I have ever seen. Unknown to me until very recently, when I stumbled upon pictures of the cake online, while talking to my Irishman. It is called Battenberg Cake and is basically a sponge cake covered in marzipan, which when cut in cross section, displays a distinctive two-by-two check pattern alternately coloured pink and yellow.

As it states on the beautifully coloured box my five small cakes came in:
"Chequered sponge sandwiched together with an apricot filling, wrapped in almond flavour paste."

It is the single most visually appealing and delicious cake I have ever tasted, believe me. Although I am a great fan of white chocolate, I think I might have found my very new favorite sweet addiction.

My Weekly Surface Mail.

Considering it is Valentine's Day on Saturday, I thought I would share something romantic this week.

A while ago, I posted a list of answers to questions in a tag. The sixth question prompted me to list my favourite thing and my answer was Package(s).

So what are these packages all about?

It so happens, that there is this amazing man I know, that lives in Ireland. And I guess he thinks I am just a little bit amazing too. Even though we are far apart, he tries to make the distance work in our favor. Most importantly, he makes sure it is as easy on me as it possibly can be.
And to show he thinks of me, he sends me a package, or even two, each week. One parcel will always contain white chocolate. The other, a small gift. Or even a BIG gift. He is so generous.


The fantastic part is that he is able to give me the most fun, beautiful, amusing gifts - he seems to have picked up on what I like and love so easily. The parcels contain anything from jewelry and books to shoes and clothes, and even small, childish and cute things. I guess each week feels like a celebration.

My Signature.

This morning I was at the post office to get a package. Yes, it was the result of my recent Saturday shopping.
Usually I have to sign for the parcel. With my signature, which keeps looking more odd the older I get. It is at this point unreadable and resembles just a mix of mindless doodling, than any known letters.

I am not sure exactly at what point my handwriting started to deteriorate. As a child, I was taught to write with a neat cursive handwriting, using an ink pen, also called fountain pen. I remember dipping the pen into the inkwell to begin with, but about two years into my school start, the pens became more modern and came "ready to be used" with ink cartridges. Every note book I remember using would contain a sheet of pink blotting paper, for removing the excess ink after writing.
When I was in 7th grade, the schools introduced the modern ballpoint pen, making our writing easier and neater. No more ink smudges in our note books. And slowly the presence of blotting paper disappeared as well .

When I was thirteen years old, my parents moved to Sweden. In school I realized that the handwriting of the Swedish children was different to mine. No one wrote in cursive style. They all wrote printed style, which was certainly odd to me. However, I tried to adapt in any way I could, so my writing changed slowly as well.
Today I still print when I write. I write all the letters as capital letters, imagine that. All caps, as if I was shouting!

To date the most beautiful handwriting I have ever seen is that of my Irishman. His letters to me are my most treasured possessions. He is an artist, not just when it comes to the writing style, but he has a way with words as well.

But back to the signature. My signature looks nothing like my name. In fact, it is unreadable, even by me. I recall a memory from my childhood, today with great amusement; I used to watch my mother sign letters and prescriptions (she was a pediatrician) and I kept asking her, if she used "the grown up style" writing. Not being able to read what she wrote and seeing that her handwriting looked nothing like mine, I believed that we all learned the "grown up" handwriting when we grew up.

Well, certainly, I did learn it; or at least the unreadable signature.