Secret Post Club; Edition the First

I don't know about you, but I love getting post....not the rubbishy bills or junk mail variety of course, but letters, cards, handwritten notes, and of course things you may have swapped or ordered, which in my case largely consists of books, DVDs, and pretty make-up and beauty type objects. When I was a lot younger; i'm talking aged 11-16, I used to have lots of pen pals, who I had "collected" from various summer holidays, and spent an intense week or fortnight getting to know eachother, vowing to be friends for life. One of these penpals lived in Ireland and we pretty much corresponded throughout our entire adolescence. I poured out my heart on those pages, and told her my innermost thoughts (which let's face it, were usually about boys, and who I couldn't admit to fancying to my school friends, as they might actually tell said boy, and complete mortification would ensue) In return she told me all of her secrets (again, usually about boys). Sadly as we both got older, our letter writing dried up, I believe around the time we both discovered nightclubs, and illegal drinking, and would be having drunken snogs in dark corners with previously mentioned boys. I corresponded with some of my friends from school if we were separated for a summer, and then again, when I started university at 18, I wrote letters to several of my school friends...however this again had largely dried up by the time we reached second year, and we were drinking even more (legally this time) at the student union, and we were probably still snogging those boys, but this time in dark corners of the union, or in our halls of residence/student houses. Letter writing was replaced by text messaging or mass emails, which has continued to this day, and of course, several years later by facebook. I mean I don't even get paper invitations to anything these days either, is all done by email or the good ole facebook event invite. I even got invited to a wedding via facebook a couple of years back. I'm happy to report that on the whole I have largely received paper invites via Royal Mail for the rest of the weddings I have attended... but the occasion of the fb wedding invite does pretty much sum up the way the world has gone in terms of the "art of letter writing" or generally receiving good things in the mail. This makes the rare times I get something in the post, usually at birthdays, Christmas, or for those special events like Weddings, super special.
This brings me onto the actual point of my post...The Secret Post Club. As the name suggests, it's kinda like a secret santa, but where fellow bloggers are allocated a name from the club members, and each of those people buys/makes/passes on a gift to that blogger, and this is repeated every month (should you wish to participate in that month's swap). When you are given your blogger name, you are encouraged to look at their blog, and twitter, if they have one, and work out what you think might be the perfect gift for them. This way you not only hopefully get a personalised surprise from your "secret poster" but you get to find a new blog to read that you might not have spotted before, and everyone gets to share the love...generally a very lovely thing! You can then check out the blog of the person who sent you your gift too...so that's two new blogs you've been opened up to yourself, and if you blog about your gift, you open up their blogs to everyone who reads your blog too....spreading the postal joy all round! I see it as a perfect combination of old school correspondence and contemporary digital media...this makes Emma a happy bunny!
I cannot for the life of me remember how I happened upon this wonderful idea, but I believe it was mentioned on a blog I was randomly perusing, then I followed the breadcrumbs until I had learned all about it, and signed myself up. If i've managed it correctly (which will be blummin' lucky if I have) If you click on the pretty Secret Post Club tag at the top, you will be whisked away to the lovely Heather's blog, who is "chief elf" when it comes to the Secret Post Club. There you will find the details of how it works, and how to sign up, if I have anyway tempted you with this little post.

Anyhoo, this month, I was given Megan of The Lady Who Lunches Blog to post my gift to, which I hope she liked. I really liked Megan's blog, which I probably would never have happened upon, had it not been for the Post Club, but i'm now a follower, and am looking forward to reading about how she adjusts back to life in the States. I'd recommend checking out her blog yourself.
I received a lovely parcel from Becky over at beckywilloughby.blogspot.com who writes a blog about being a single mum. Here are the lovely things she sent me


Books! Yay! Firstly Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant. This was in the TV Book Club earlier this year (is anyone else watching this? it's on More 4/Channel 4 and they're currently doing the Summer Book Club) This is set in 16th Century Italy in a convent. During this time in Italy wedding dowries were so expensive, that it was often cheaper to ship your daughter off to the convent and have her become a nun....regardless of what she wanted of course! I think this will be an interesting read.
Secondly A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly. This is set in 1906 in the mountains of New York (state of course!) and is a bit of a murder mystery/coming of age story told from the point of view of 17 year old Mattie. I think this is technically a children's book, but one of those good ones, that appeals to adults too (obviously aimed at older children, not little ones!) I love these kind of books though...I don't think there should be any snobbery when it comes to children's literature at all. I love the Celia Rees books which I think are probably quite similar to this novel, and of course the Harry Potters of this world. I've read a couple of the Percy Jackson series recently. While not as good as Harry Potter, and quite a rip off of them in a lot of respects (in my opinion of course....there are quite a number of formulaic elements that even Rick Riordan must agree owe a lot to the Harry Potter series) they were still quite entertaining. Best part about these children's books, is that you can get through them quickly....bonus!!
I shall enjoy reading those. Becky also sent a couple of scented candles, which was lovely....gotta love a scented candle haven't you?! So all in all, very happy with my post club gift...Thank you Becky!!

Right, so there you are....my first Secret Post Club blog post...I hope there shall be many more!
Comment below if you guys have any questions, i'll do my best to answer!

Til next time,

Em xx