We Do Adventure

I had a brief spell as a philatelist in my early teenage years. My small collection is now lost, although it is really no great loss. I am just not fanatical enough about small pieces of perforated paper. However, today twenty-six identical stamps (pictured) caught my attention. Perhaps it was something to do with the hilarious crib scene. I confess this is the first time I’ve seen baby Jesus in the manger with a koala and a kangaroo! It was also because they betrayed the origin of this seemingly unopened box, part of a consignment of humanitarian aid picked up this morning. Australia! I won’t pretend to understand how or why we ended up unpacking hand-knitted hats and gloves (amongst other things) sent from the Antipodes for Balkan babies.

Rowan has bruises on her legs and my right arm aches a little. Such are our scars from shifting shoeboxes. We got the call to join a large team of people to unload a truck full of Samaritan’s Purse goodies for distribution here over the next month. We shouldn’t complain because a language lesson meant we missed half the unloading and the rain was kind and held off by the time we arrived to help fill a second container. As with all repetitive manual tasks there is some fun to be found in it and so we passed a pleasant hour passing boxes. Boxes where obviously a theme for today. Earlier we visited the post office to collect four parcels. This seemed to take an eternity as the lady behind the counter made sure all the paperwork matched up and got signatures in the appropriate places. It also got us wondering about why French is the international language of post. Am I mistaken in thinking that as Rowland Hill is widely credited as the inventor of the model postal service that English woul...