A Postcard Post

"I know there's a desk under here somewhere..."

Along with blurry photos, souvenir t-shirts and the sudden need for sunglasses, postcards are a sure sign that you are On Holiday. Whether depicting white sandy beaches at sunset or something involving a dirty pun, they are a way of telling family and friends exactly what you are up to while they are stuck at home.

There is something rather delightful about receiving a postcard from half way around the world (or even just Kent.) Postcards make you feel that despite a hectic schedule of camel racing, scuba diving and cheese rolling, your friend thinks enough of you to take the time to purchase a postcard, track down a suitably expensive stamp and hunt out a post box. Once they have popped through the letterbox and been suitably exclaimed over, postcards go on to take pride of place on a fridge or corkboard, or maybe on the Random Stuff Pile on the side. Once here, they become part of the furniture, remembered only when you are looking for that bank statement, pizza voucher or event poster.

There is always the slight chance that of the myriad of cards that you send, a few won’t make it. This can be particularly awkward if they are aware that others have received one. My dad claims that he sent my brother, sister and I one each from South Africa, yet while Claire’s and mine arrived shortly after him, Matt’s has apparently been lost in the mysterious swirling fog that is the worldwide postal service.

Given the unreliable nature of the post compared with instant forms of communication now available to us, it often seems like postcards are more effort than they’re worth. I generally buy postcards with the vague notion of perhaps sending them at some point, only to find them a year later, still in their little paper bag with a Eurocent coin and flimsy receipt floating around in the bottom. However, before undertaking the Mad European Dash, I made a solemn promise to myself that I would send postcards this year. In the light of this decision, we dutifully went through the rigmarole of buying, stamping and sending the postcards from a variety of beautiful, historical and generally postcard-worthy locations.

Was it worth it? In time-honoured tradition, we are currently waiting for the postcards to arrive after us. While three have made reached their respective fridge doors, five are still missing in action. This includes Matt’s, who seems to have fallen out of favour with the god of postcards. It certainly felt good to take a minute and think of home while standing in the middle of the fearsomely beautiful Vienna or a cold and windy Brussels street. While the simple messages I managed to fit on could easily have been conveyed quickly and overall more cheaply via text, the little moment of delighted surprise was worth the extra effort.