Adventures in Postal Letterboxing

Well, last night I finished my carving. Got both of the stamps I committed to carve done, now I just have to hunt up the addresses to get them sent off. I got my BB for the UK. I wasn't sure if the one I ordered off the web would arrive in time, so I went all over Charleston looking for another cuddly toy I had seen the week before that I thought would make an adorable, pocket-sized buddy. They didn't have any more at the store I originally spotted them at, so the search was on. I looked in two card shops at the second mall we visited an no luck. I went in a bookstore and in the farthestmost back corner I found one. I snatched him up. At this point I still had him in mind for a back up. We went in a toy store, though, and I saw the same dog I had just ordered and it was much bigger than I had anticipated. So, I decided right there that my newly purchased buddy needed to be the one to make the trip over. I will let the secret out -- I had ordered a Shetland Sheepdog cuddly toy. I figured that would be the perfect buddy to send to the moors since YT tells me that the moors are covered with sheep. Oh well.

So, I got the buddy boxed up this morning in a small box because I wanted to keep the cost down -- for me as well as my UK host. The best box had printing all over it so I had to wrap it with brown paper. When I went to the post office, boy! He weighed the box and pulled out a huge form that was never going to fit on that box. So he had me get a padded envelope and address it to put the box in. After I filled out all the paperwork and we got the box put in the envelope, he put it back on the scale and it wouldn't accept the form, he had to get out another label, a smaller one. This would have fit on the box, but I knew the way my luck was going that if we took the box out of the envelope the computer wouldn't accept the small label it would insist on the huge form again, so we left well enough alone. The postal clerk was really nice and he offered to fill out the small form for me so I could go ahead and leave. So, the BB is on his way and should get there in plenty of time to go to the LB event with YT and meet lots of British letterboxers. Boy, do I envy him!

Some bad news is that on Monday morning there was a nasty electrical storm which fried our modem. I'm without internet connection right now, and am at the community center checking email. I will probably be offline until the end of the week. I may check email again on Thursday if not back online at home.