Saturday, March 29, 2014

29:03:14 Boarding school

As a kid I loved reading books like Mallory Towers, the adventures of girls all living together in dorms and having midnight feasts and wonderful adventures. One of the highlights of the boarders week was when they would get a parcel from home filled with treats and letters. We know of a few families whose children are currently at boarding school. Some in the UK and some here in Australia. Now kids have access to mobiles and emails it is not quite the old fashioned world the children's books described. Families can send and receive messages over breakfast. No longer is the arrival of the postman a hold-your-breath moment as you wait to see if a special letter or parcel has your name on it. 

Recently I found an interview in a magazine that I thought a friends son would be interested in. He is one of the kids we know who boards. The idea of sending him just the page in an envelope seemed a bit of a lost opportunity. Initially I grabbed a bag of lollies and threw them in the family shopping trolley thinking that it would be nice to put them in the envelope with the interview. Then the woman in the post-office explained that the minimum parcel size meant that the postage would be triple the price of the bag of sweets. There was only one thing for it. I was going to get every scrap of value out of the parcel weight allowance. 

I got a small box and threw in the lollies, then bar after bar of chocolate, a new block of Dairy Milk (that the check out woman told me was the most addictive treat she had ever eaten!) And of course the interview that had started the whole ball rolling. It felt like I was a character in the old Mallory Towers book as I wrapped my parcel in brown paper and tied it with old fashioned butchers twine. I'm so excited about going down to the Post Office and sending it on its way. If he gets half the fun out of opening it and eating and sharing the treats inside then it will have been worth every cent!


2 comments - click here to leave your comment:

  1. I swear- we are so alike! I have always love the idea of boarding school. A favorite movie- the trouble with angels- always had me dreaming of living in a boarding school! Ha!

     
  2. I agree, my daughter now reads St. Clare's by Enid Blyton .... if she attended a boarding school I would send her parcels anyway!
    By the way, fun to see HARIBO in an Australian post because I live very close to Bonn, the former German capital where HARIBO is originally produced (did you know HA-RI-BO is short for "Hans Riegel Bonn"?) Hans Riegel is the founder of the HARIBO company but died a few years ago.
    Bye,
    Jule