This week's cards

Entering what is hopefully our last week of full lockdown and looking forward to maybe being able to actually have a conversation with another human being again. The cats are absolutely sick of my voice. Thank you for helping maintain my sanity.

u/tigerlady13 for the brilliant and vibrant cinco de mayo invitation and enclosed recipe for chicken tostadas. It is unfortunate that cinco de mayo is not really a thing here – we just don’t have enough Mexican representation – because I dig any excuse for a party and therefore very much appreciate the invitation. All reasons to celebrate and bring people together emotionally right now are good reasons <3

u/chihirol1984 I cannot express how much I love this card of Blackbeard’s flag. You have managed to combine my love of pirates and love of anatomy into one piece of card and it’s fantastic. I am glad you are managing to stay positive and endure. Love to all of you and yours.

u/ntonyrlf for the Cheshire cat card. I travelled two hours each way to go to a primary school in a town that was very associated with Lewis Carrol and celebrated it massively. I therefore had a bit too much of AiW by the time I left and have only just, twenty years later, begun appreciating his work again as an adult!

u/CapnCobbler sent another beautiful homemade card. I’m sorry to report that the cats are just getting very fat because I’m stress feeding them to retain their affection. This has meant CeCe is even more entitled than before. I have discovered she has a thing for a man in a high vis jacket and has spent hours ogling builders and mobile car wash men (the fluffy perve).

u/Bugsy7778 for the Happy Easter card! I hope you managed to find a way to celebrate without driving each other crazy in lockdown. I’m sorry your favourite time of year suffered under the pandemic and hopefully next year will be double the chocolate.

u/Google Panda for the postcard of June Lake Pines. It must be annoying with all the mosquitoes starting to emerge. The declining bee population is a big thing over here as well and many urban bee farms have been set up on the roofs of buildings around me to try and bolster it. I do have a favourite insect, the details of which are in my return card!

u/rsmith1807 for the Tom Lidl card by Katie Abey. Katie has really managed to get a grip on us UK RAoCers and it’s easy to see why. I hope you are soldiering on OK.

u/tacosfortacoritos sent an unsolicited Austin postcard from a local artist. She taunts me by recording that it is currently 25 degrees C there and encourages me to research other prickly fruit that can be eaten after her last card spawned a conversation about various cacti recipes.

u/pasteltoro made a lovely card from a photo she took hiking at Tunwater Falls last year, accompanied by a chatty hedgehog (she momentarily forgot what a porcupine was). I do hope to still get in some hiking this year. I am meant to go walk the Jurassic Coast in June but have had to cancel plans for the Lycian Trail unfortunately. I am worried my fitness level has now dropped substantially but I guess I just start again and painfully build it up again!

u/dizzysymphonystatue for the seahorse card, sticker pile and kind words. I have found that on the whole many people I know that have had intensive rehabilitative experience are coping far, far better than anyone expected. I like to think that a lot of the shittiness I’m experiencing right now is the normal reaction for a healthy person that suddenly finds themselves isolated, alone, jobless and unstimulated and not as a result of schizophrenia. But it’s hard to see anything with balance when your living situation gives no one to discuss anything with. Like I say, hopefully our six weeks of strict lockdown will be over this week and I can start grasping the straws of a normal life again.

u/dirtytightsdelano and u/ignaposts did a joint card crammed with teeny tiny messages and the stunning depiction of Captain Knickers dreamed up in their equally delirious heads. I am the now proud owner of a CK original and it will be known that I shall be boasting.