I love letters….you know, real ones where people write with pens and ink. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a letter like that because my handwriting is so appallingly big and scrawly that I only ever get a few words onto a page. Then of course I change my mind about how to say something and have to start again – whoops there goes another half a tree so I always ‘write’ on a PC then just sign (leaving about 2 inches of space between ‘yours’ and my printed name so I can fit in a huge big LINDA).

This makes me feel really guilty when I get a letter that’s handwritten but it equally makes me really happy. I have had several letters off ‘my precious people’ of late, partly because we’ve moved, partly because of sending peeps calendars and partly because….well, just because.

I have boxes and boxes of them too from my past – Cathy Owen – my best friend at college – I still have all of her letters even though I haven’t seen or heard from her in donkey’s years. Claz – I have some classics from her – Claz you KNOW what I mean. I’ve kept every bit of handwriting DM has ever given me – well, to be truthful, that amounts to a couple of dozen words – he’s not a man of letters!!!

When the post arrived on Monday, this was in it. It’s a letter from a very special lady indeed. Someone I’ve only known a relatively short while but nonetheless important to me in every way. She had sent me a cookbook – this is another example of a friend just knowing what will rock my boat – just like Claz’s wabbit night. It’s a real beauty so I have to eat my words to some extent because it’s a fabby book, with pics. I was bemoaning to her that I’d spent an hour in the huge Barnes and Noble in Baltimore Harbour looking for a good American cook book to take home with me and could find only nasty things on cheap paper and with no pics to whet the appetite of a vacuous airhead like me.

I now have two American cookbooks that fit this description because I also have a beauty from Jill too.

Anyway, the point of this story is I was touched by my friend on the very day she was in hospital after being taken to the emergency room by her sister with chest pains.

Sally duly reported that all was well and so both of my friends (Patti and Sally) are now safe and happy.

All I have to say is my world needs people like these ladies and my life is so rich for knowing them…….oh and ‘thank heavens for clean knickers’ – they know what that means!!!!!!!!

Last year my wonderful Daddy was helping us get the house in shape to sell...though I didn't say that at the time.