2014 is the 30th year we have lived in our house and throughout that time I’ve done letterbox maintenance when it was absolutely necessary, like the time a lovely lady left a gift for our first grandchild and lifted the lid to fit it in. The only problem with that was the lid wasn’t supposed to lift so the roof had to be securely nailed back on again. Another time I had to reattach it to the post as it was only held on by the very tips of the nails. Liquid nails came in handy that time. The door was another casualty but I managed to put a long nail through that so it could still swing open.
You might be imagining that this letterbox must have some special significance or I wouldn’t have bothered but the truth is there are people around who periodically think it’s a great lark to dislodge letterboxes and then dump them in a new location. I thought if we installed a nice new letterbox it would probably just fall victim whereas the daggy old letterbox in danger of falling off its perch unassisted had never been worth bothering about.
Recently I arrived home to see the box sitting shabbily in the middle of the driveway, not vandalised just the victim of a puff of wind. I decided the time had come for a new one so we bought and installed a nice new trendy letter box and the old one became another potential lizard home.
Tonight I put our rubbish bin out and noticed our neighbour across the road had updated her letterbox. The original one was handmade by her grandfather in about 1950 and was toughing it out in much the same way as ours had been. I suspect hers might have fallen victim to a tree branch falling during strong winds last week. Our son’s 1970s era letterbox fell off it’s post and broke its number plate when the landscape gardener came to do some work so his has also been replaced.
On Saturday night we were out to dinner with friends and the guy, who is more a brain man than a brawn man, was bemoaning the fact he had to install their new letter box the following day.
On the strength of all that I’ve decided this must be the Year of the Letterbox. I haven’t seen a single horse yet and no one has even talked about one, it’s time to update the calendar!
Musings of a Retiring Person 
Such a pretty ex-letterbox! I hope all good news comes to the new one!
Thanks for your comment. It would be a lovely change to get some good news via the Letterbox usually it’s just Bills. Good news seems to come via phone or email. :>)
Give me your address and I’ll send you a card to make your letterbox filled with happy thoughts! 🙂
No need for that, now each time I open it I’ll remember your kind thought and smile!