My postman brings the nicest things!

belle
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

This morning I received a wonderful parcel with a row for the row by row swap quilt in it.

This row is from Belle, in Australia *waves madly to Belle* and the theme of my quilt is ... yes, you guessed, Christmas!

Also in my parcel were 3 knitting magazines, and some blackwork patterns and this



The colours on this photo are shocking and I appologies to David Bailey straight away. The work is black on white, but the flash bleached it out so you couldn't see a thing so we have a low light level compromise here. Belle found this in a charity shop and rescued it, then decided I might like it, which I do! Thank you Belle, very very much for all my lovely pressies.

All this bounty brings me to pondering on the nature of online friendships and the generosity of a person I have never met, and am unlikely to meet in person :( but with whom I have shared a great deal over the past months.

There is something very special about a friendship which is built around a shared interest and the ability to find someone on the otherside of the world with whom you feel a bond. With whom the serendipity of your circumstances is surprising.

I wonder too, sometimes, if it is because we have these friendships on our own terms that they are so prescious to us. We answer each other when we want to, we reveal what we choose to reveal and we refrain from telling what we don't want to be know. Our imaginations fill in for us the parts we need filled but do not ask or are not answered. This person becomes the perfect friend in many ways. Undemanding and reassuring by turns.

This might sound negative, and that is not how I mean it ...My point really is how wonderful it feels when that person does something that lives up to or exceeds the fantasy; when they show thought and care and a knowledge of your likes and interests. When they go beyond the image we have created they reveal themselves better than the thought we have of them in our heads.

In fact when they are a real friend.

Thank you, friend. :o)