BIRDS, FEATHERS & LOVELY POST

Some people are just lovely. You know they are lovely when you meet them and you keep in touch a little, though they move from exotic location to exotic location. But you keep in touch, following each other on FB etc. One such person is Samantha Ryan - I hope she doesn't mind me yapping about her but she is lovely in many ways.

Yesterday she sent me a review of Joely Richardson as Emily Dickinson that she had seen in an English newspaper and thought I might like (I do!). Tucked in with the paper was this card (image by Rosanna Parry):

How did Sam know I love birds?

When I opened the card I found a sweet message and this, my favourite Emily Dickinson poem - "Hope" is the thing with feathers - hand written.

And a feather. And a message about the feather: 'A feather from Cambridge - a bird that's perched on, and flown above, 500 year-old turrets of stone.'

Both card and feather now reside in the Emily Dickinson box above my desk, with other bits of Dickinsonalia and various related charms.

Thank you, Sam - you are truly lovely. Like many of the people I meet through writing, as it happens. I hope you all have a magical, creative, successful and prosperous 2015.