Surprise, Surprise!

A parcel arrived in the post from Australia:

The parcel was expected; the contents were not.  

That’s not as daft as it sounds – the lovely Blubee read my South African poetry collection via email; and was kind enough to print it out and send it back to me in the UK, with her annotations.  She also sent Maltesers, poetry, dogs, pens, napkins, Earl Grey, notebooks…she is clearly an avid reader/stalker.  She knows me well.  

I confess, I wouldn’t have opened the parcel until next week if I had known it was for my birthday; but I’m not sorry.

If you would like to learn more about Blubee, you can find her here.

As delighted as I was with everything, however (especially the book of poems written by dogs; so close to the truth, I suspect my own dogs may have submitted to publishers and not told me because they have greater success than I do), as lovely as it all was, what really touched me was the beautiful note Blubee wrote about my poetry and how it affected her.

Thank you so much, Blubee; you made my year.