pen friends

medic I think that is excellent. I am very impressed.
Is it a closed group now?
Is it mainly a gardening group?

This sounds so like "Can Any Mother Help Me" doesn't it? Except theirs was a folder which circulated, each member adding her contribution as it reached her and removing her previous one.

Hello glitabo - thank you for your kind comments. This group is always open to any one interested. When it started I used the topic of gardening as I wrote my initial invite for pen friends to a gardening magazine. Gardening was the first talking point but the topics we write about have diversified- some of us write about our pets, others about varied hobbies and interesting aspects of their lives. We all learn from each other and look forward to the postman calling regularly. I even received a few letters from New Zealand,The Falklands and South Africa! Now my grand children are getting independent and my husband sadly died last year so friends are impportant. Contact me if you want to know more.

I have had a pen friend for 66 years - she lives in Australia - she has visited me and I have been there. We were put in touch with each other via school.
After the war when things were rationed here the school I went to received parcels from a school in Australia. I don't know all the things in the parcel but I do know there were always jellies which the caretaker's wife would make in huge bowls and we would sit one afternoon and all have a bowl of jelly.
One of these parcels contained names of some children in the school which had sent the parcel. We all had to write a thank you letter and then eight of us had our letters chosen and were given a name to write to. Some weeks later I was skipping in the playground when a classroom door opened and the teacher came out and handed me a letter. I can remember the incident as if it were yesterday. It was a reply from the girl I had written to.
My mother suggested I write back and give our address. And so it started - sea mail initially and then Air mail and now email. We have become such good friends that when we are together one of us can start a sentence and the other finish it.
We have been a valve for each other when we have had big problems in our lives - she had a very sick child and I was the release and told things no one else knew. Her parents stayed with me several times and also her daughters.
I felt the only person who truly understood our relationship was her father - one of the loveliest men I have ever known.
Now we send email every week to keep up with things. She and her husband are on a tour at the moment with a group of friends and in places a bit inaccessible so when she hears any news her daughter sends to me via Facebook to keep me updated.
Funny how simple things can shape part of our whole life.