Trip report: Papery & postal pleasures in the U.K.

Dear Everyone ~

I’ve just returned home from two dreamy weeks in the U.K. Our last visit had been in September 2019 for our nephew’s wedding … It had been three years since we’d seen family, and this visit felt like a bookend to the pandemic. As it happened, our arrival coincided with the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

As you might imagine, one of the first things I like to do when I arrive is head to the nearest post office to see what the current mailing rates are and to purchase stamps. In the U.K. many post offices are located inside co-ops. This is handy for picking up a range of items in one stop—vegetables, bread, jam, eggs, beverages, chocolate, newspapers, and of course mailing supplies. The first post office I located was just a short walk down the road and around the corner from where we were lodging. As I approached, I discovered that the post office co-op was in a building that had been someone’s home!

Assuming that postal rates had increased since my previous trip, I enquired about the costs to send (a) a postcard, or (b) a postcard ensconced inside an envelope, or (c) an envelope bearing a notecard plus a blank postcard. I requested enough postage for 20 envelopes, but the clerk hesitated, explaining that he was running low on stamps! My guess is that there was a run on Queen Elizabeth stamps. The clerk was able to sell me exactly what I needed by offering me some single stamps with the requisite denomination and some pairs of stamps totalling that same amount. Typically, I like to use several stamps, including some special issues, but this time I was happy to go classic (and monochromatic) and honour Queen Elizabeth.

A paper purveyor priority had presented itself before the trip! Once I knew we’d be spending time in Dorset, I sent word to Melanie & Julia of Molesworth & Bird (The Seaweed Queens) to see if we could meet up … which we did! Their shop is adjacent to (or perhaps somehow even attached to) The Town Mill, which is a working water mill with a courtyard, shared by several artisans, art galleries, and a cafe. I met Melanie around lunch time and we sat by the sea, on the very beach where they gather their seaweed to press for their specimens. We had tea and a chat, and it was like a dream! Another day, I revisited the shore and collected a few seaweed specimens for myself, and have brought them home, unpressed, in a small airtight box.

As we motored from town to town along the southwest coast, I spied several charming post offices, one in a town called Broadwindsor that was no longer a working post office. Because of the town’s stringent building codes and historic facades, the shopfront remained a post office…while its imminent occupant renovates the space to become … his new home. Can you imagine? Across the road was a decommissioned phone booth that the town had turned into a free library. So inviting!

Later in the week I visited a hand papermaking mill, and am delighted to report that I’ve ordered two types of paper to stock in the shop. My order will be on its way soon, and I’m saving glorious details of that visit to share with you once I have the paper in hand. For now, I can’t resist showing the wrapping of the “souvenir” I was graciously presented with. Can you guess?

Speaking of mailing & papers, because I was so close to France, I decided to have my shipment of Season Paper notebooks—which have been out of stock for too long— shipped to me in the U.K. for air transport home. The patterns are, as always, délicieux!