The card shop has hundreds of cards and it’s always a difficult choice which ones to get - that’s why it takes me ages. Plus the fact they sell magazines and puzzle books. I’m always on the lookout for something like ‘The Puzzler’ or ‘Wordsearch’ in English. But I always manage to get a sudoku level 9 and above, just for Stuart - no language necessary 
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Mrs. AM makes cards, and sometimes runs workshops etc. we have literally hundreds sitting around. This is a tiny, limited sample.
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She’s a bit useful is Mrs A-M !
Pity you don’t live nearer. You’d certainly be getting my custom with samples like those. Again, congratulations to your good wife 
Internet, social media… it’s all very well… but…
Nothing quite like holding a piece of paper (a letter) in one’s hands, knowing it was handled by the writer and by the recipient (who obviously cherished it and stored it carefully with her other “precious bits and bobs”)
In 1914, a young Frenchman wrote to his French sweetheart, from the trenches in Belgium.
This turned out to be his last letter as he was killed the next day…
He was making plans for after the war…
a (translated) quote: “I will find you. take your hand, look into your eyes and ask you to marry me”
That scrappy piece of paper, was treated like a treasure by the young lady to whom it was addressed. She never threw it away … and it only came to light after her death many, many years later.
Some years after his death, the young lady married an elderly Englishman with 6 motherless kids. Like me, she loved kids and went on to have 3 (halfbreeds) 
one of whom was my father.
I treasure that letter because it obviously meant so much to her.
and I can almost feel their presence when I hold it and read it.
Online stuff simply isn’t the same…
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Stunning, and touching at the same time Stella.
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The writing is in pencil, beautifully looped “real-writing” and using classical/old-world vocabulary/style … obviously as well-educated as my grandma. But I reckon he must have been resting the paper on something not absolutely solid (sandbag perhaps) as the pressure of the writing comes and goes a little bit…
I had to ask a French friend to translate it for me as I couldn’t see all the words properly and thus couldn’t make head nor tail of some of it.
She was enthralled and particularly delighted to point out the bit where he mentions that “the English have arrived and are a good lot”. 
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Amazing that it still exists if written in pencil. If you need to feel the paper now and again I imagine so where do you keep it, not under glass for protection, so how/where?
It’s quite safe, now in a clear plastic sleeve, in a folder… along with all other important family documents. I don’t feel the paper much now, although I did when I first discovered it… I’m keeping it safe for “posterity” but have given my daughter carte blanche to chuck away all and anything… whatever she chooses to do will be fine by me. I am a notorious hoarder. 
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Me too, in fact I have hoardered the value of my house down which pleases me just in case I decide to buy out the inheritors.
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