Box of Surprises

Uncle Bernard and I have come up with a really fun thing to do — mail goodies across the ocean. Back before Christmas I discovered that I could buy a box at the post office for a set price, then stuff it with whatever (legal) things I wanted and it would be delivered in 5 days. I made cookies and sent them to Uncle B in England and they all arrived intact. This is in contrast to the regular mail, which I was told could take months and still not be delivered, but returned in a mashed-up, crumb-y mess. So I was quite happy with the special delivery mail. 

Uncle B found that DHL offers the same sort of service. A couple of weeks ago he emailed that a box would be arriving on my doorstep any time. And so it did, just a few hours later. I didn't even have time to check the tracking information.

What sort of stuff would you send to a blog pal across the ocean? The possibilities are endless for someone who is observant and creative like Uncle B.

I love useful things with chickens on them. There was a plastic sign that I should have put on the mutt pen because one of the roosters has turned mean (glad I didn't send him to you, Linda), but decided the wall inside the house was a better place for it. There was a beautiful card with a rooster painting on it. This tickled me because there was nothing written inside the card, so I can use it if I want to. Aunt Bea gives people birthday and Christmas cards like this, so they can be reused. She is so practical. And there was an oven mitt thing with chickens on it. That's hanging on the front of my oven now.

There were 3 cookbooks. I have tried a couple of the biscuit recipes and they were good. Bob has perused all the books and got some ideas. The Cornish recipes are especially fun because both of Bob's great-grandfathers on his dad's side of the family are from Cornwall. (Tina and Beverly, John has this book right now but when he returns it I'll copy the pages for you.)

Uncle B asked if the cookies arrived intact. Yes! Everything did. I tried a bit of everything, but Bob did the gobbling. He liked the cookies (was there ever a cookie a guy didn't like?), said the Marmite rice cakes were weird (but ate them anyway) and we both liked the Mint Cake package better than the actual product (very sweet).

There were lots of other little treasures in the box, a calendar with scenes from Buckinghamshire, a small book of Tales of Mystery & Murder from Buckinghamshire, and a small book about life in Cornwall 100 years ago. These are things we can't get here in California. If I were going to send things from here that would tell others about life in California, it would be stories from the gold rush or about the Spanish missions, or about the Indians. There are small books like that in most of the antique stores in the gold country. 

There was something for Velcro and Gollie in the box, recommended by Uncle B's cat Wesley.

The cat on the package pretty much looks like Velcro. She loves these things. Thank you, Wesley.

There was a can of Cornish Pilchard fillets. Uncle B said the picture on the front was his favorite part. Bob hasn't eaten these yet, but he grew up taking sardines to school in his lunchbox. 

I think he probably did that to gross out the little girls, but he learned to like sardines as a side benefit. Or maybe that's in the Cornish part of his blood.

Two of my favorite things in the box were this little stuffed monkey (Uncle B is an organ grinder) and a refrigerator magnet that pretty much reflects my philosophy of life.

There was one more thing. Uncle B had sent me a handmade card when I retired last June. It came in a small box that was about the size of a 5x8 photo. Before I opened it, Bob remarked that it was probably a nude picture of my blog friend. So this time I got the real thing. Show it to you tomorrow, once I investigate the rules about posting nude photos on the internet.