Postcrossing Blog

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!

It’s July now, so here in the UK most university students have just finished with their exams, schools are winding down ready for the summer, and we’re all complaining it’s too hot. (Or, if it isn’t warm, we’re complaining about the rubbish summers we get in this country. It’s a national sport.) So for a lot of us, it’s time to think about how we’re going to put our feet up and relax.

For me, not too surprisingly if you’ve seen my other posts on the blog, my primary way of relaxing is to spend time reading. I have a magpie mind and I’ll try pretty much anything once, so I read all sorts: sci-fi, fantasy, mysteries, romance, science, history… My special favourites are the British Library Crime Classics. I even have a subscription with the British Library so they send me the newest book each month.

The other main thing I do during my downtime is play Final Fantasy XIV. It’s an MMORPG, so there’s a main storyline (which I’ve finished), lots of side stories (which I’ve barely begun) and various different levels of difficulty. Pictured is my character hanging out with the with one of the mail “moogles”, a little creature that delivers mail in the game. In one of the sidequests, you take on the mail moogle’s job and deliver mail, eventually earning yourself a postal worker’s hat… I’m still working on mine, though!

How about you? What do you do to relax? Are you looking forward to a quieter summer after finishing exams, like me? We’d love to hear from you via comments, but you can also use this prompt to help you write postcards this month!

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!

We spotted a question on the Questions & Answers tag in the forum a while ago which made us curious, so now we’re opening it up as this month’s reading prompt! Ann-Kathrin (Annkaba) asked this: “What is your favourite word in your language?”

I know that I spend a lot of time reading, and thus everyone expects me to have a favourite word right on the tip of my tongue—after all, I must love so many words! But I don’t really seem to think about it that way, and I’m much more interested (usually) in the story being told…

All the same, I do have particular sounds in words that I love to say (and because I love to say them, I’ll confess I often whisper to myself as I’m reading—to the annoyance of my family!). They just make the most satisfying mouth-shapes somehow: stepped, swept, crept, leapt, crypt, tipped… All those “-pt” and “-pped” sounds are pretty delicious somehow.

There are lots of words that mean important things, of course, and that I’m a fan of for the meaning they hold. But I’d be lying if I said they were favourites: the humble “stepped” takes away the prize.

What about you? You can share your favourite word (or words!) in the comments, or use this as a prompt to inspire your Postcrossing messages this month.

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!

Sometimes it’s fascinating to get a little peek into someone else’s everyday life: the really little details like shopping lists and what they have for breakfast. It can vary so much between people, even within the same country or the same family, so it’s always interesting to get a look inside someone else’s fridge—or we think so, anyway!

In my flat, the fridge almost always contains either halloumi or chorizo (along with the usual staples like milk and butter). Sometimes both! Two of my favourite meals are based around chorizo, and I’ll eat pretty much anything with halloumi (we usually fry it, but use it in a few different dishes). When talking about this prompt with Ana, I couldn’t help but evangelise for my current favourite chorizo dish: baked cheesy rice with chorizo and courgette (except that we usually substitute peppers in for the courgettes, as they keep their consistency a little better after being cooked).

Other than halloumi and chorizo, though, we tend to vary our meals each week, since my wife prefers to change things up. I suppose the other most consistent thing in our fridge isn’t actually for us: we have loads of veg for the rabbits, like chicory and coriander. For several years running, our supermarket’s app told us every year that we were the #1 buyers of parsley and coriander at the main store we went to—I’m not surprised, because all three of the buns love some parsley and coriander…

What about you? Do you have anything you try to always keep in your fridge? Feel free to share here in the comments, but also on your postcards this month! Especially if you have any tasty recipes (double especially if you have any good recipes involving chorizo)…

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!

Learning a new language is a common goal, so we think that HM’s suggestion of sharing what language you’re learning, or the languages you’d like to learn, should be fascinating!

Personally, I speak a little French and always mean to practice: I have a copy of The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien) in French, and I periodically open up apps like Duolingo and Clozemaster to practice a bit… but that’s mostly just because that’s the language I learned in school. I know my accent is terrible, and there’s not much reason in my day-to-day life for me to speak any French, so it’s more of a mental exercise than anything.

It’s probably not too surprising though that I’d love to learn to speak Welsh. My wife used Duolingo to get some vocabulary, and is now using an app called Say Something in Welsh to practice more. I haven’t joined in yet, but… it’s tempting! I’d be starting from zero, really (I can count to ten in Welsh, and say a couple of phrases by rote), and I’m not sure I have the time yet. One day!

How about you? What languages are you studying, and which ones would you like to learn? You can share your thoughts in the comments, and/or use it as a prompt for something to write on your postcards!

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!

I’m a big reader of sci-fi books, and the way they end up predicting the future (or not predicting it at all!) can be surprising. The most unexpected things come true, and then at the same time we don’t have the long-promised flying cars! What’s going on? Anyway, science fiction aside—what are your predictions for the future?

In some ways, my predictions are a little pessimistic (sorry!). For example, I think that worldwide trends are leading towards a higher likelihood of humans coming into contact with new-to-us diseases, as our habitations push further and further into the habitats of animals that humans don’t normally come into contact with. On the other hand, I think that science is going to come up with some great answers for that: mRNA vaccines are a great start, and I think we can make it faster and safer to produce them all the time.

I think we’re also going to get better at treating all sorts of other conditions, partly with vaccines, partly with medication, and partly with gene editing. (There’s a great tool called CRISPR which can edit DNA, and I read the best joke about it the other day: KFC has asked scientists to edit the chicken genome—they want to make it CRISPR! Okay, it’s a bit niche, I know.) The things we’re going to be able to understand and fix and improve are going to be astounding.

I also think that no matter what, humans are going to come together and support each other. A lot of people take a pessimistic view of humanity, and I can see why… but in every terrible situation, there are also amazing people, and I think those people will always rise to the challenge.

Now it’s your turn! You can write it on your postcards this month, or just answer in a comment: what are your predictions for the future?