I received a letter this morning.

It's the first for ages.  The usual stuff that lands on the doormat is bills, flyers for the local supermarket and its cheap booze deals and a thrice-weekly junk offering from BT inviting me to sign up to its broadband.

BT must have sent me hundreds of these annoying leaflets over the years.  I've still not signed up and on point of principle, I never will either.  You would have thought it would realise by now.

So, back to my letter.

It was from someone who I respect as a former colleague and value as a good friend.  This person had faith in me when they asked me to take on a top role within their organisation.

They could have said what they said in an email or broken it down into bursts of 140 characters and sent it as a message via Twitter.  Efficient, yes - but dull and without much impact.

Putting pen to paper (or in this case typing) makes such a difference.  I've re-read it several times and intend sharing it with other close friends.

Now, this letter has pride of place in my 'special things to be kept' file.

It prompted me to read some of the other things in there - a letter from the local MP for one of the radio stations I managed - letters from senior councillors who I worked with at Leeds - correspondence from a businessman who I worked with for six months in 1993 ... and the last letter from my dad before he died in 1988.

(That letter still makes me cry by the way even two decades on).

I've also found a letter sent to me by my sister when I was about nine and she was seven while I was away on a school trip to Butlins at Bognor Regis.

(To put this into context, Bognor is about an hour away from Winchester where I lived at the time and despite being there for only a week, my mum wrote to me three times and my dad twice.)

My sister managed just one letter and a picture.

Her correspondence is amusing because it reveals quite a lot about what is going on in the mind of a seven year old.

I'm sure she won't mind me re-printing it:

Dear Andy

I hope you are having a good time.  Sorry I did not write to you before because I could not think of anything to say.

[Clearly, she wasn't missing me that much then].

I have got good news for you.  I past (sic) my ballet exam and I got highly commended.  It was the second highest.

We got a post card this morning, thank-you for it.  [A slight diversion from the main topic here].

Maria [my sister's highly competitive cousin] got commended for her ballet exam because she got good all the way through her report and I got very good.

Mummy and daddy are very pleased.

I have got the television in my bedroom, hope you are happy I miss you, please come back soon.

Lots and lots and lots of love, Rebecca [oh perhaps she was missing me after all].

Her ballet exam success was clearly a big deal, because believe me, getting the TV to yourself in your bedroom was a special treat (even in those days when you could only receive a few channels).

Anyway, the moral of my 'story' is this - if the weather's a bit crap where you are this weekend, write a letter to someone you love or care for.  I'm sure it will brighten their day.