The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!
This month’s prompt was suggested by iwritedeb! She suggested that we all write about our neighbourhoods, which seems like a great way to learn more about people all over the world! Where do you live, what’s it like, and is there anything unique about it?
I live in a pretty suburban area, but within a stone’s throw of farmland. If I look out of my window, I can see a hayfield which has recently been harvested. There’s a small farm nearby with geese, a field where a horse and a pony hang out together, and a lot of nice houses, each with their own garden. We’re not far from the town centre, but here it’s nice and quiet.
Often in the UK you don’t know your neighbours very well, but I like going for walks in the area, so people see me around and we know each other well enough to say hello. Strangely enough, my little corner of Yorkshire is full of Welsh people: there are two other Welsh families on our street, including a gentleman with a dog who is even keener about the rugby than I am (the man is, I mean, not the dog). I always joke that it’s because the weather in Yorkshire is so similar to the weather in Wales: it’s always raining!
My neighbourhood is kind of quiet and unexciting, but I’m sure you can all do better than that! You can write about your neighbourhoods in the comments right here, on the postcards you send out this month… or both! We’d love to hear from you.
20 comments so far
I live on a suburban street that blossoms in the spring as all the trees put forth the flowers. Though we do not interact often, we have a neighborhood movie in my backyard each summer and share snacks and laughter. It is a good place to live.
I live in Ilminster, a small market town of about 5000 people in Somerset. It has lots of individual shops, a theatre, lots of clubs and activities and it's surrounded by beautiful countryside. This year, I decided to set up a community project to encourage people to grow tall sunflowers to beautify our town, encourage gardening and a community spirit. We gave away thousands of sunflower seeds to schools, churches, care homes, shops, offices, clubs and many other places. The result has been a more beautiful town, an encouragement of sunflower art in schools which formed the basis of a big exhibition and a lovely friendly community all around. Our council gave us a small grant to cover the expenses so we have some funds to do the same - only bigger and better - next year! If you want to know more about the beautiful sunflowers, look at Sunflowers of Somerset on Facebook and send us a message!
I live in a small town between the vineyards and the beautiful Palatinate forest in the land Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Due to its mild climate, the region is often referred to as "Tuscany of Germany".
My house is situated along the so-called German Wine Route - a symphony of grapes. It is the fault of the Romans. They brought the wine to the Palatinate and suddenly it was there: the German Wine Route. In the Palatinate, the largest Riesling area in the world, the compass needle always points in the right direction. The weather and climate are excellent. If I look out of my window, I can see the pink blossoms of the blooming almond trees in spring, the beautiful oleander bushes in the squares and gardens in the summer and the sun-drenched, fragrant vines waiting to be harvested in autumn. Everywhere here, the vines squeeze up on the gentle hills overlooking the Rhine River. Seen from the bridge over the country lane, the vineyards look like a green ocean that the breeze ripples under the sun.
Along the wine street, we do know our neighbours and talk often together. And if you go for a walk between the vineyards or in the forest, the persons you come across will hail you with "hello" or "good morning", even if you don't know them.
We also have numerous open-air wine festivals.. Everywhere, you can taste wines at the winemaker's and savor the local cuisine in typical inns. I'm sure you would like it! I moved to Germany 15 years ago and still find the region soooo beautiful!
I love this subject. I often comment, on the postcards I send, on the plant life in my part of southern England as it varies with the seasons. I guess it's the part of my neighbourhood that interests me the most. I hope some who send postcards to me in September tell me about their neighbourhood. It'll be so interesting to see people's different takes on their neighbourhood.
I spent all my childhood in the village of Alonka ("Place of Fairy Tales" is translated from the local language) on the Baikal-Amur Mainline of the Russian Far East. She loved to swim in the lake, go to the forest and sit by the fire on the bank of the mountain river Alonka. And since the age of 11 she rode a motorcycle. Industry is a railway.
And now I live in the big city of Khabarovsk, the capital of the Russian Far East. The city is large and industrial, but I love it for its wide avenues and beautiful buildings!
My neighborhood today is very different from the neighborhood I grew up in. A small town in the country with a population of 326. Now the city I live in has 246,000 in a metropolitan area of well over 7 million. However, I think of my neighborhood as the families that live along the streets, around my house. Many multi-cultural families, that seem to get along just fine and similarly look out for one another’s interests. There is an Elementary and Middle school within walking distance and a large park behind my house where families can gather to enjoy a picnic, play tennis, basketball, football and baseball, along with many other fun games and sports. In the summer a swimming pool is open and available and even a library for many kinds of use. There are a couple of donut / pastry shops within reason and it’s always nice to walk into the local restaurants where they call you by name and bring your drink order prior to arriving at the table and engage in a bit of small talk before taking our order. Additionally, there are shops to entertain the ladies and a beer garden for the fellas. The square downtown often holds weekend fairs, music festivals, antique automobile and arts and craft shows, among other fascinating events. We have movie theatres and stage production shows where we recently saw the plays “Grease” and “9 to 5.” There is also a junior playhouse that hosts programs year-round that includes children from 3 to 18 in their performances and my 3 girls all performed in a variety of the shows growing up. My son was into baseball, so we spent a lot of time at the park with him. Thus, my moniker 4kids2pay4.
Hey there all, my neighborhood has a park where they recently planted a lot of trees, so I suspect in many years there may be a small forest. It is a great park, where I have brought all three of my dogs. Our neighborhood is very quaint and amidst shopping centre near by. At night, the street lamps light up at a certain time. There are tons of nice people. The climate here has a full four seasons. Lately it has been cooler, as Autumn approaches, but we recently has a Heat Wave. Right now, the sun is rising and I just had my morning cup of Coffee P'uerh tea, and made a nice hot coffee for my hubby as he went off to work for the day :). The forecast may be good for weather today. Every day lately I catch transit to run errands, visit others, or go to buy stamp(s) and mail my postcards. My hubby and I went for a walk after we had dinner, and walked around our neighbourhood and it was about 8 PM and very soothing. Nearby popular spots are Shoppers Drug Mart, the famous Canadian Tim Hortons cafe, local grocery store, and a local library branch. Another staple area is Gore Park where there is a big Christmas tree in December, and when I was young there were deer there that you could hand feed and also a train. There is a historic fountain there that is so nice to sit by near the summer and dogs go swimming in to cool off. Also, so important is the Escarpment here. A lot of beautiful nature and the trees are so vibrant in the Fall, and much sedimentary rock, from many thousands of years ago when our area and even the big city of Toronto I believe, was once submerged under the water of an ancient glacial lake, Lake Iroquois. I really love the local hiking trails, like Cootes Paradise and the local Conservation area, where you can relax, swim, fish, picnic, etc... We also have a local theatre nearby called Theatre Aquarius, where I saw a production of Kim's Convenience with my father. We have many restaurants here too and local Ice Cream Parlours. Nearby is Burlington where there is a gorgeous waterfront. Toronto is a popular destination too, and on long weekends there is always a lot of traffic to go Up North to cottage country. There's this place called Dundurn Castle which is very interesting and has a restaurant on the grounds. Locke Street Festival, James Street North Art Crawl, SuperCrawl, and of course, our beloved CFL Football Team, the TI-CATS! Education and Healthcare I understand are major sources of work here, where it was once the Steel Industry back in the day. This neighborhood is a Port City. Cheers, everyone and have a fabulous and safe day in your neighbourhoods! - JDeLaney7_
I live in a forgotten area of Sydney which no one knows about. It is not on the way to anywhere else in the city so we have little through traffic. The suburb has part of a National Park and runs into the Georges River. My street is quiet as I live across the road from a park. I see lots of birds including ducks, egrets, ibis, kookaburras, galahs, cockatoos and rosellas. They also share my yard. I waste a lot of time watching them frolic.
I live in a university neighborhood. There are many students doing their activities in the square or with their friends in bars. It's a small neighborhood, which guarantees us a closer relationship with the people. On Sundays, many dogs take the opportunity to sunbathe in the park. As we live on an island, we can also choose to drive for 15 minutes to the beach. ♥️
Thank you for sharing about your neighbourhood, including the photo. My mother's from Yorkshire, and I've visited family several times. Oh, how beautiful is the landscape! And that wind! Lovely!!!
Hi Everyone, I live on the West (Wet)-Coast of Canada on Vancouver Island in the Capital city of BC, Victoria. On the Island is the population; 846.278 and in Victoria only; 408.883!
I live downtown, I like it because I can walk very easy to shops, entertainment and workplace. The app. where we (my husband and I) live in at the moment is temporary because we bought a new build condo a little bit out of town. We hope that we have lesser street noise in our new place.
In our temp. place on 9 high, I can see the mountaintops from the USA and gardens on the roof of other place surrounding us.
In 10 min. walk I see the beach on a 15 min. drive a lake, how nice isn't?
Hi all, I live in a suburban neighborhood which is about 5 miles (8 km) from the city of Buffalo, NY on the shore of one of our Great Lakes, Lake Erie with boating and nature, walking and biking trails and the Peace Bridge which connects USA with Canada ( yes, I miss all my Canadian friends) and about a 20 mile ( 32 km) drive to Niagara Falls. We have a fairly new library, a town park with pool, baseball diamonds ice rink and a Farmers market during the summer months all within walking distance from my house. Also in close proximity is an outside plaza with a variety of stores and a local Tim Hortons cafe which is originally a Canadian thing but oh how we love our Tim Hortons here! We are a huge sports community in Buffalo, NY and Highmark Stadium which houses the NFL Buffalo Bills (yay, football starting next week) KeyBank Center for our NHL Hockey team Buffalo Sabres and Sahlen Field for our minor league baseball team Buffalo Bisons (and thank you Toronto Blue Jays for letting Buffalo be your home away from home for part of baseball season) are all within a short driving distance from my neighborhood. Our summer and autumn months are the best but will admit that our winter season could be a little cruel at times but nothing us Buffalonians can't handle and we have excellent ski and winter sport resorts in our region which we call the southern tier. So here's to a beautiful day in the neighborhood!
Hello Postcrossing Friends! We have lived in our Minneapolis/St Paul suburb for over 30 years and we love it! We're 20 minutes from both downtowns (not that we go often) and just about 2 1/2 hours from Lake Superior in Duluth, MN, which is a lovely town and perfect for a weekend getaway. Our city of Mounds View has about 13,000 residents and is well-known for its excellent school system with many families wanting to move to the area to be closer to these schools. We have a community center, a movie theater (recently opened after being closed due to Covid-19) and a half dozen decent sized parks. There are a small couple restaurants but no chains, a couple drugstores, but the grocery stores are in neighboring suburbs.
Dear Postcrossing Friends,
We live in the south east Arizona and just experienced the best monsoon season in years, which made the desert bloom not only with thousands of wild flowers, but grasses as well. It is a sea of green outside my window. The Huachuca Mountains (apache for thunder) are in my backyard and we hike them regularly. So yesterday (Labor Day) we went on a newer trail to us and the meadows up high ( about 8000 feet) were filled with a kaleidoscope of colors. Thank you all for sharing your neighborhood.
I reside on a South Carolina sea island beside the Atlantic Ocean. Our island is a quiet and natural place with sandy beaches and a maritime forest. We co-exist with abundant wildlife including foxes, deer, coyotes and alligators. Our island is awash with fresh water lagoons and each one is dominated by an alligator. Hundreds of gators exist here. Last summer an unfortunate tragedy occured when a woman tried to "pet" a gator which seized her, dragged her underwater and drowned her. The island is strictly residential with no commercial development such as gas stations, food stores or businesses. We do enjoy two golf courses, many tennis courts, boat launching sites, walking trails and pools and a marina. It is a friendly community with mutual respect for a variety of lifestyles.
I once received a postcard from a postcrosser living in the middle of Russia. She said, "I have lived in ___ city where nothing has happened for the past 467 years!" hahahahahaha
Hello Friends,
I live in München (Munich) since years. I grew up in a small town but nowadays I love the big city you have so many possibilities: 10 min. by bike to a huge forest or to the river Isar. There is a library where you could read or borrow books, newspapers, magazines, DVDs and so on. Around the corner small shops for everything you need. It is easy to get around the region of München by bicycle, on foot, also by public transport like buses, trams and metro. It is a pleasure to live here.
I live on a strip of land called “Willoughby Spit” on the Chesapeake Bay. It was formed by a hurricane in 1806. It is basically a sand bar! Every hurricane season, we wonder if it will be taken back. We also have the longest fishing pier in North America just down the street (the Ocean View Fishing Pier). 😃
I live in Toronto, not as exciting I know, but I enjoy my area. I love animals of all kinds and currently have a beautiful pomeranian dog. The neighborhood is very dog friendly and so I have met many people and made friends thanks to my daily walks with my dog.
There are tons of korean, japanese and american restaurants around the neighborhood so there is a little something for everyone. :D
I live in WangJing Zone (望京) of Beijing. In my neighborhood, there are four musical-instrument shops and many delicious Korean restaurants near my home. But my favorite place is the Northern River Park (北小河公园) with trees and blossoms (peach blossoms, roses, cherry blossoms, mahogany... ). I like sports so I run every morning along the river. I also like watching the sunset while standing on the bridge of the river with my husband. There's also a fancy mall not far away. We like to have some coffee and some healthy salad or to see a movie in the cinema on weekends.
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