This week, we’re going to look at some street art. Yes, I am mixing up some of my favourite things and no, there are no copper kettles (though there should be more mittens). These are mostly from the Brick Lane area of the East End that has gentrified from the fabric and spice market of my childhood where pie shops and jellied eels were aplenty to an achingly cool hipster hangout where the food now extends far past pastry and potato and there are fedoras everywhere.

u/YESmynameisYES put out one of my favourite recent exchanges, where we sent each other our respective family apple pie recipes. My family’s apple pie is an absolute mongrel of nomadic origin and, whilst it is incredible, I wouldn’t expect anyone to try and make it without tasting it first! So, YESmniYES, you have an official invitation whenever you happen to drop into London to come round for apple pie. Thank you so much for sharing your recipe with me (don’t worry about it being ‘effort’, I can handle pastry 😉), I will definitely be making it when I next have people over and, if they ask, refusing to give them the recipe because it is not my recipe to give and they can just live with that. Her card is seen here by Old Street with a piece by Senkoe, a Mexican artist, who tries to capture the style of pre-Hispanic art and is inspired by his dreams.

‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ was such a total joy of a movie, as anything put forth by Studio Ghibli often is (I’m just going to show off my print of a signed piece by one of my favourite artists, Brian Mashburn, that was influenced by ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’). I had told u/talkingroses about going to see a completely charming and totally budget production of Kiki down South Bank where a grown man was conspicuously puppeteering and voicing Jiji the cat and occasionally trying to lift the teeny tiny lead on a broomstick up into the air at the same time. Sometimes the best theatre productions are the ones held together by pure scrap and passion! I am a very happy receiver of a postcard of Kiki working at the bakery now. I regret to inform everyone that neither Toki nor CeCe is as wise as Jiji.

This card is shown infront of collaboration between Mr. Cenz and Lovepusher. Mr. Cenz painted his first mural at his school at eleven years old after his mother, getting tired of his emerging delinquency, brought his sketchbooks into school and begged them to give him a project. He’s probably one of the more recognisable and prolific commissioned artists in London now which just goes to show how great mums’ instincts can be.

Speaking of cats, my favourite nautical note-writer, u/CapnCobbler made Cece’s day (for it wasn’t much longer than a day) by sending her some gift tags of her very own after being informed how excited the spoilt brat was by my last one. Here is a video of CeCe receiving her gift (excuse my unbelievably loud and demanding voice trying to order her around). The gifts lasted a total of five more hours. The Captain also sent me a lovely owl and castle card encouraging me to Keep Glowing. It goes for all of you. Captain’s orders. You can see the orders here in front of the Romeo and Juliet house. I’ve never found out who undertook this – there is no tag and I can’t find a record – but it has been untouched and unfucked with for nearly two years now. Despite depicting a story I am long weary of that has haunted my entire life (as is inevitable when you share a name with the female lead), I think it’s really charming.

u/feellikebeingajerk used Leap Day as a motive to inspire receivers of adorable vintage frog cards to jump into the unknown and out of our comfort zones. I agree! I live by the adage that I would hate a boring life and comfort quickly becomes mediocrity which becomes apathy which just melts us into mushy complacency until we die. So, as if I don’t already sleep little enough, I will be taking two more online courses and endeavour to start a new hobby I know absolutely nothing about – like woodwork (because furniture is expensive) or public speaking (because I talk enough shit constantly in both private and public therefore learning to structure it would be beneficial for everyone). I also spontaneously applied for every job I could find in the Mediterranean but that was partly because of the endless rain and the leak in my roof and general exasperation.

We’re going to celebrate a little bit of girl power with Nomad Clan, a duo of Mancunian women who try and use their art to reflect local legends and history but here are part of a bigger mural focused on connectivity therefore using both an envelope and the cassette style rewind as part of their piece. It’s alright ladies, you’re preaching to the choir.

I was sent hope in a glittery, confetti filled envelope from u/ms_koala, that my romantic life will cease to be an embarrassing story of the most ridiculous situations. She reassures me that the real gentleman that would be proud of me and my attractive and charming ways exists right now and is wondering where the hell I am. I just hope he won’t be too disappointed that I’m not that much of a real lady. As what would have been my fourth wedding anniversary approaches (yes, it really was that short lived!) on April 1st (…should’ve seen it coming) I did need a bit of encouragement. Thank you. As this past year has been a new start for me, here let’s remind ourselves where someone else started out. Where Banksy is now known for his stenciled pieces of protest, his first significant foray into the spotlight was with ‘Ghost Rider’ – a car he sprayed pink with a spectral driver.

Do(ugh)nut debater and my scavenging partner in crime, u/polluxopera, apologises for rambling in his card, but as anyone that has ever received a card from me knows; it’s me that takes that crown! I am given the history of Do(ugh)nut Day, which is coming up y’all, and I feel an urgency to introduce him to a wide world of do(ugh)nuts so he is adequately prepared for that very important occasion. For what it’s worth, the aforementioned ex husband (who was a Canadian) constantly complained that our do(ugh)nuts sucked. I will wholeheartedly confess that many of our replicas or interpretations of food do not hold muster next to others, but do(ough)nuts are not one of them. What I will say is that our variety of crisps/chips absolutely sucks when compared to our friends across the pond! Yous all have crisps/chips DOWN.

But if we’re going to start an argument, Vhils can easily finish it – he does specialise in art created through pyrotechnics after all, and any visitor to his hometown of Lisbon has also surely seen his creations shown in the shadows made from the blown out images on previously bland concrete. He chose his unpronounceable moniker based purely on a set of letters that would be easy and quick to tag. I think some of us chose out usernames for similarly mundane reasons (not polluxopera though, that required some thought)

I think we are, in many ways, thankfully, coming into an age that starts to value the bookish wallflower and that’s great and all, but Veronica Lodge is still the best Archie character there is. u/pinktothebone sent the most Veronicaesque card my way with quotes in multicoloured pens, a tonne of stickers, a teabag and enthusiastic washi. Ladies, please remember Veronica’s wise words ‘Being sexy, confident, bitchy and well-dressed does not mean I lack emotional depth’ – us ridiculous extroverts contain multitudes too! Sheperd Fairey also expresses multitudes – here you see one style of his, but you may be more familiar with his work on a famous 2008 Obama campaign poster that promised hope.

u/finnerite blessed me with another of her handmade cards. This time a more botanical, leafy vision as we look forward to spring. I’m not sure pretending to my own Mum that I have kids she doesn’t know about would work very well in manipulating cake out of her – she would more likely be extremely confused and my father would be FURIOUS (we’re all under orders to never reproduce because our family has ‘horrific genes’ – he’s not completely wrong!).

In the spirit of resourcefulness and innovation, Invader is the only artist I know that has released his own app game where you track down, take a picture and mark off how many of his pieces you’ve seen. When I was in Barcelona, I saw a space where an Invader piece had very briefly been only to be quickly desecrated by someone that maybe didn’t realise the profile of the artist, and subsequently had had a little memorial painted around it.

I got a champagne card from u/dirtytightsdelano which occurs either when she is drunk or when I have sent drunk cards, and this time it was the former. She was busy getting fizzy after finishing the essay that I bullied her through via snail mail and deserved her current levity entirely. Being a fellow Brit that has also been beaten down by constant rain after a different exotically named storm hitting us every weekend (where’s fucking ‘Storm Gary’ or ‘Storm Pam’?), she had taken her exasperation out on painting me a rain card with an all too menacingly happy raindrop and another card just full of foreign swearing and insults which made my day after a leak appeared in my roof (I keep going on about the leak in my roof but it’s really pissed me off). I very niftily balance her three cards here along with an extraordinarily generous ice cream (The Fattening is still in progress) in front of a piece by Stik who is the only person in the world who has managed to make stick figures evoke so much emotion. This piece has been maintained for absolutely years and is in tribute to the ethnic and religious diversity of the area.

u/senselessart made a confessional out of their offer – confess our sins and we would receive a penance and be saved. I confessed the following sin:

“My ex-husband started putting on weight and got unappealingly fat very quickly but still made kissy faces at himself in the mirror like he didn't notice so I didn't quite know how to address it. Instead of just being blunt about it, I lied and said he'd started snoring really, really badly and it was affecting my sleep and he didn't used to snore so maybe he should get it checked out.

Of course the doctor told him he was now obese and needed to lose weight fastish, but also suggested that a youthful sports accident that had broken his nose as a teenager could be contributing to his non existent snoring. So he also went through fucking surgery to realign his nose to help 'sort out' the snoring that didn't even exist.”

My sins were forgiven! On the understanding that I undertake my penance which involved walking 100 paces in one direction, acting puzzled as to where I was and returning on myself. Then to repeat this twice more. Then to go and have a beverage of my choice. For the sake of my eternal soul I underwent this heavy road to absolution, performed my walks of shame and pondered over a hot chocolate. I am not spiritually cleansed. But I’m not sure it counts if I don’t COMPLETELY regret what I did…

I admit, I didn’t undertake my pacing down my own street but in one direction and then the other from this Poirot piece by French artist Zabou.

u/vickiiiie and u/Chikadette had an enviable meetup in Hong Kong and wrote out cards to those of us that tried to guess what they would be eating at their get-together. Vix has started an obsession between myself and Japanese style souffle pancakes which, it turns out, is catching after I took both my mate and then my mum (and her mate) to Fuwa Fuwa and got them all hooked too. So of course I guessed pancakes. Nope, Chickadiiiickie were at an American style diner and I hope they had a smashing time. Who the hell is up for a London meetup? In the wholesome vibes of RAoC this Ben Eine piece seemed appropriate (though I am not linking to anything Ben Einey because he is not so wholesome and seems to get punchy with people he thinks he loves. He should be inspired by us rather than us by him.)

I had told u/nil_ka about an incident, thirteen years in the past, that arose from the misuse of one particular ‘break bead news with cute animals postcard’ (Long story short: got visited by door to door churchy people the morning after a mad party with graffiti on my face and a puppy card (or whatever) saying ‘I am a convicted sex offender’ on my door) so she sent me another one from that pack which, whilst less traumatic for my neighbours, is far more pressing than it seemed over a decade ago! And yes, there is a ‘Clitterhouse Road’ in Stoke Newington.

Fanakapan has also been a voice for environmentalism alongside his balloon-centric art. I bought him a coffee once as he spent three days painting a massive astronaut piece above an ice cream shop as the ‘Beast from the East’ battered Britain. He was a very happy chap and remembered to say ‘thank you’ so I guess his mum taught him well.

This housewife from u/abloodyminge has gritted teeth and is tired of your shit. In answer to Ayn Rand’s statement “The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me?” well, the police and my psychiatrist have managed to stop me a fair amount for which I guess I’m grateful, but if I get an aforementioned job in Italy then someone else can definitely deal with the leak in my ceiling instead and eat my dust (or splashed puddles in this case). Abloodyminge has said that Americans don’t appreciate her username as much as Brits. Y’all need to embrace ‘minge’! And ‘clunge’. (Disclaimer: I’m sorry I said ‘y’all’. It sounded awkward as soon as I typed it.)

There seems to be a lot of local affection for the Jimmy C piece behind the card that depicts the owner of the café it adorns as a three year old with her grandfather. It has stayed relatively unhassled and only lightly retouched for nearly five years now. Jimmy is an OG of the contemporary scene so I guess you have to consider yourself pretty fucking special to paint over him.

I have a longstanding love of cable-cars. Whether it was the old 1994 version that creaked and rattled its way up Table Mountain or the leisurely intimate journey on the Madrid Teleferico that I enjoyed chomping away on my fifth calamari sandwich of the day. There was no username from Brazilian RAoCer Diana who sent me this happy view of a Forteleza cable-car wrapped carefully in a homemade orange envelope with golden adornments, and I hope someone can point me in the right direction to identify her!

This portrait mural by Dreph is part of a positive and uplifting series of pieces he painted that all together are part of his project ‘You are Enough’ which is a tribute to friends of his that he sees doing amazing things. This lady, Tracy, is the mother of his son and she works with children in programs to prevent, raise awareness for and help victims of sexual abuse.

Now, sadly, the rain came down so plans changed and the remaining five cards had to be posed with the long suffering cats as accompanying models. The cats are not artists in any way.

I am utterly in love with the bibliomancy reading I got from u/mareepharos that came from ‘Sock’ by Penn Jillette. Unfortunately, if the new directions in my life can only be found in the early hours of a late night diner I’m going to have to make a pretty big trip first! London is more about late night kebab shops – will that still count?? I thought this was a really wonderful offer and she put a lot of thought and effort into it and I can’t also help but nod approval at the tea themed card. I may be a walking travesty of an Englishwoman in that I’m neither here nor there about tea, but I still have a cupboard reserved for mugs, sugar and a box of Yorkshire Gold.

I loved hearing about the Sonovan Desert from Jason, who didn’t write his username but I believe is u/HappyMaids. He talks about river-cut canyons and tonnes of flora and fauna behind this Grand Canyon postcard. My friend Stacey was hiking the Grand Canyon on a fateful day four years ago, reached the end, her phone pinged and that’s where she learnt about the results of the Brexit vote. If you’ve got to scream, being by the biggest echoey canyon in the world is a good place to be!

Straight up, this card itself is amazing. This gorgeous drawing of Nasi Lemak has to be up there with some of my favourite cards I have received! My grandfather did his Dutch National Service in Indonesia (the first time he saw what a pineapple that wasn’t in a can looked like he thought someone was playing a joke on him) and proudly came back with his own bastardised recipes for Nasi Lemak, Nasi Goreng, Laksa and Mee Goreng that are far, far from authentic, but they were his. u/m0nk3yklng tells me of a thing that made her proud – when she travelled alone for the first time – and yeah, that’s a massive thing to be proud of and I loved hearing about her experience of that time in Penang! It’s hard for most of us to boast about ourselves, so I’m glad I forced her to because I got a great card out of it and another wordy wonder!

New member u/babewithamobilityaid (I believe! No username mentioned!) sent this lovely floral card and a message with immaculate handwriting! We have had shared unfortunate experiences of the same lacking hospital, and I hope her doctors start to get a move on soon and give her what she needs to improve. She has been a wonderful person to exchange with and communicate with and I hope she is enjoying the RAoC experience and feeling welcome!

I was really touched by u/donnatime taking the time to write a response to a card she ‘won’ from an offer I made a while ago of handmade cards depicting places I have hiked. I had sent her one inspired by the West Highland Way where she and her husband had also walked. I was really happy that getting that card caused them to get out the old photos and remember the happy time they had on the trail and even, perhaps, start planning another Scottish adventure. I hope that if they do, they pass through London and I can treat them to a meal or, at least, a pint before they hit the Highlands!

Thank you for sitting through my thank yous and allowing me to share something I love alongside your lovely cards. The first week of March cards are now up on my kitchen walls after the February cards have gone into the album.

This week, I hope your roof doesn’t leak, that you get a giant ice cream and, remember, if you take a picture of a piece of street art always tag the artist!

More importantly please remember, in the words of Dreph, that you are enough.