Royal surprise.......

A letter arrived from England a few days ago...... as soon as I saw the name on the envelope, I knew who it was from..... a long-ago friend J who started off as a pen-pal with me and another school-friend of mine. My school-friend B had begun a pen-pal friendship with J, and she talked and talked about their great letters crossing the Atlantic every couple of weeks and asked if I would like to write to her also. Writing has always been a passion of mine, so B didn't have to ask me twice.

After a few years of sending letters back and forth, J decided to visit the US to meet B and myself. We were all either just-married or about-to-be-married at that time, and we all got together at my house on Long Island for dinner. We all had such a great time, and we talked and talked late into the night.

The three of us, J, B, and myself, kept up the letters through the 1970s and most of the 1980s. J moved from England to Malta, B moved from NY to Connecticut, and I moved from Long Island to Texas..... and we all lost touch along the way. I thought of J from time to time, especially when my cousin F and I talked and eMailed about the goings-on in Britain's Royal Family. Over the years, I had forgotten J's last name, couldn't remember B's married name, and time just marched on. I tried a couple of times to find J on the Internet a few years ago, but didn't have any luck at all.

But just a few days ago, there was J's letter in my mailbox..... she had managed to find me through sites on the computer. The address wasn't quite right, but the post office got it here just the same. She sent me her eMail address so I quickly got on the computer...... and then also sent a letter through the post office, just in case the eMail didn't go through.

J answered my eMail...... and just like that, it's as if all the years never passed by and it seems as if we were just in touch last week. I told J that if she's ever of a mind to cross the Atlantic again, she can surely come visit us here and stay in the cottage.

Hopefully, by that time, the plumbing problems in the cottage will have been fixed. As I type, my husband is at Home Depot getting supplies for himself and the handyman. The pipes in the barn will be fixed first, just because it's an easier job (even though twice as many pipes burst). So the guest rooms above the barn will be up and running way before the cottage.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that next winter won't have the same plumbing problems that we had this winter and last winter. Is that too much to ask?

Winter now seems to be just a memory..... we are back to sunny blue-sky days, and temperatures in the high 70s-- which are our 'normal' winter numbers. Normal. With the last couple of winters we've had in this state, who even knows what normal means anymore.