Yes!!

I expect that you’ve heard these news items in your own country, but they are such good news:

The state of Texas will have to put executions on hold because the European company that supplies one of the ‘ingredients’ has stopped doing business with the state.

The King of Morocco pardoned a criminal not knowing that he was a pedophile and has now withdrawn the pardon. The man left Morocco and is free, out in the world somewhere, but his picture has been seen by millions as the news was broadcast…

Good people doing good things

I’ve recently started to read a blog about a centre for aid for handicapped young people in Hanoi; Hold The Future. The blog is a cheap way to let the world know about what is going on there and show off the website selling some of the beautiful gifts that the young people are making (Click on the Union Jack in the top right hand corner for the English version). There are still scars left by the war that finished in the mid 70’s. Children are still being born with disabilities because of the use of ‘Agent Orange’. Today I read that they have set up a Wikipedia page.

Good person number two is Peter the Worldman. I think he’s just about to retire for the third time. Will they let him go? I wonder if he will be sent to Pakistan next. Thank you Peter for all of the years of hard work you’ve put in to help people in need.

A very good start to the week

This has been a true week of Gifts of Prosperity if ever there was one. In the post on Monday came a nice cheque refunding me for over-payments to the social security last year. Next came a knock at the door. I’ve recently translated a CV and letter for a neighbour applying for a job with a foreign company. My neighbour presented me with a very posh platter of expensive sweets/candies; marzipan fruits, stuffed dates jellies...

I’ve written recently about buying some albums of postcards back in September, they came from a château. Yesterday the present owner of the Grandmother’s château contacted us. He’s very kindly sent me some of the history of the family from before our postcards were sent. Our postcards have brought to light a daughter he didn’t know about. I’ll try to compile as much as I know so far to help him , unfortunatel, I'm going to have to try to write in french:( . This is exactly the kind of thing I love about my postcards, real live history. For example; in the summer I gave Dom a catalogue from one of the auctions we went to because it contained a quote from a letter George Sand sent to a friend. Only the people who have seen the catalogue would have seen that quote. Our expert is a mine of little details, we learn a lot from him.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next!

The main news of the week is, of course, that Debbie has now had her surgery and is doing well.

A bit of everything

Two good pieces of news to start the day bright and early. The most important is that Debbie’s father is fine. They had to wait and worry for a lot longer than necessary for some results due to the slow wheel of the NHS in the UK.

Then, when I put AOL on to look at my emails this morning I saw that they have a feature on France in 1900. This should stimulate interest in vintage postcards. All in all a good start to the day.

I spoke to Dom on her birthday. Her parcel had arrived okay and she was pleased with the contents, especially a purple jacket exactly like this one. Though she still insists she prefers the orange/pumkin one! She is teaching English twice a week now and really enjoying it. The job at the library is very demanding indeed. It’s very quiet so she’s on MSN most of the time AND getting paid for it. The afternoon of her birthday was going to be spent baking and preparing food for her party in the evening. One of her friends was kindly lending their flat as Dom’s has only got standing room for about 4 people (one in the shower) and two of her friends were coming from Paris. I haven’t heard anything since…

Olivier is being driven to lycée this week by his friend who is an apprentice chef. The building where he studies for 1 week every month is next to the lycée so they go together. Half an hour extra in bed all round, much appreciated by me. It’s strange to see them going off, it only seems 5 minutes ago they were sitting on the doorstep together, in the sun with their toy cars.

Rob and I worked flat out for a few days last week. Ebay put on a special offer for professionals (that’s us); free placements. You can imagine we prepared a maximum amount of postcards and managed to put on 180. We’ve been selling groups of cards too, to clear our stock, which have been doing very nicely. I was rather proud of this group, which now has a bid I’m pleased to say.

Click on the image for a much better view..

Yes!!

And again!

Yes!!!

I forgot to mention this