A Postcard from England

One of the blogs on my blog list (in the right hand margin) is "Mexile" written by Gary Denness.  Gary is an Englishman who lived and worked for a number of years in Mexico City, and his blog began as a record of his experiences and travels there.  He and his Mexican wife now live back in England.  For a while he stopped blogging, but he is now back at it stronger than ever. 

A couple weeks ago he wrote an entry about postcards.  He said that he always used to send postcards when he was traveling, but that he had not sent any for quite a few years.  He did however have still have quite a stash of postcards, and offered to send one to any interested readers of his blog.

I quickly responded that I would enjoy receiving one if he didn't mind shelling out for postage to the U.S.  We exchanged addresses, and I told him that I would send him one from Ohio.  There is only one store in my vicinity that still sells postcards... a nearby drug store.  (Of course in the U.S. "drug stores" are not like pharmacies in most of the world.  They sell all sorts of stuff.  In fact filling prescriptions is almost an afterthought.)  Anyway, as it turns out, we both sent each other a postcard on the very same day...  Tuesday, May 12th.

Exactly one week later, I received a postcard from Gary... a very cool card from the National Railway Museum with what appears to be a vintage illustration of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, England.

   
I did a bit of research and read that this bridge, which crosses the gorge of the Avon River, was built in 1864, and in its day was considered quite a marvel of engineering.

This morning, as I was getting ready to write this post, Gary emailed me and told me that his postcard from Ohio had arrived.  So both the British and the U.S. postal services are working quite efficiently.  I had sent him a card of the Perry Monument in Put-In-Bay, Ohio, a monument which commemorates a victory over the British (ha! ha!) in the War of 1812.

Gary, you will be pleased to see that your postcard is now on my fridge, along with postcards that my cousin used to send me on her travels and an excessive collection of magnets that I have purchased on my travels.

Come the day when I am able to travel again to Mexico I will send him another postcard from there.  But instead of arriving in a week, it will probably take months!