Hands across the sea

This morning’s post brought a letter from friends in the Gulf and a book for me from Australia. The book is Breton Holiday (1939) by Jane Shaw. Hurrah! I had to seek this out after learning that the Children’s Press edition (retitled Breton Adventure) is quite heavily cut. Now I shall have to read the two books in tandem, to see where the butchery took place. I am very pleased with the book, which is a lovely fat one with nice white pages. Why is it that so many of the scarcer Jane Shaw titles seem to be available in Australia but not here?

 

This book came from a dealer via ABE. During our correspondence I asked if he would be kind enough to have real postage stamps put on the packet, rather than a computerised label, and he did! So I have some nice Australian stamps to add to the collection, plus some more from UAE. Not everyone would be bothered, so I am grateful to him. Australia Post, like our own dear Royal Mail, issues more and more stamps while fewer are used all the time. I will save my rant on this subject for another day.