LETTER WRITING

Just a quick note today, as DMJ is nudging me to work on the website.

I've had a penfriend for about fourteen years now. She lives on the other side of the State, we've never met but write to each other two or three times a year. She has a computer but will not hook up to the internet as she thinks it's the work of the devil. The lady I walk with thinks it's evil too. Another friend of many years, a couple of years older than me, doesn't own a computer and is not the slightest bit interested in getting one.

A friend in Tasmania said that all she gets from her sister in Victoria is jokey emails, never a letter! So I wrote her a lengthy email the other day and she was thrilled. I should have printed it out, or written it long hand and posted it.

I've kept up the letter writing as I love receiving the reply. I must admit, though, that I've been typing them lately, in a nice font, Flair Roman, but I must get back to long hand and the fountain pen.

I used to wonder why anyone would want a web log, for all the world to see but, now that I'm blogging, I'm meeting so many clever, wonderful people from all over the world - my penpals, really.

Well, I'd better go and do the morning dishes, the washing, the vaccing, the dusting and then, maybe there'll be a little time left for the website before I prepare dinner!

LE PLAISIR DES MOTS

The pleasure of words, Le Plaisir Des Mots, the title of one of Georges Jean's (b.1920 Besancon, France) books which was awarded the 1980 Fondation de France prize.

The little book now in my possession, Writing: The Story of Alphabets and Scripts, thanks to a stall at the Easter market, was also penned by Jean and the English translation published by Thames & Hudson, London, in 1992.

Inside the front cover he writes about Jean Froissart, the 14th Century cleric, who decided that his vocation was to "celebrate the great deeds of princes and to sing of courtly love".

Statue of Jean Froissart, Chimay, Belgium

This from Wikipedia:

Jean Froissart (c.1337-c.1405) was one of the most important of the chroniclers of medieval France. For centuries, Froissart's Chronicles have been recognized as the chief expression of the chivalric revival of the 14th century Kingdom of England and France. His history is also one of the most important sources for the first half of the Hundred Years' War.

Battle of Poitiers 1356 - Miniature of Froissart

The pleasure is now mine to open this little book, gaze at the coloured plates of the illuminators' works and read about the art of writing. Thanks to Royal Armouries for the following video.