Hello,

If you’re reading this you got a plank letter.

Which is a thing I made up.

(Sort of.)

Because, if you think about it, (but not too much) it’s probably just a postcard that’s eaten too many biscuits.

But there’s actually more to it than that.

I’m Andy, and I write and draw stuff. It turns out if you write enough stories and draw enough pictures you can get pretty good at it, and eventually people stop getting in the way when you try and put your own picture books in bookshops.

I very often have good ideas (at least, *I* think they’re good ideas) but they don’t go anywhere. My agent might not like them. Or a publisher might not care for them. Or I might lose confidence in the thing and just stuff it to one side.

And I have ended up with a have a whole bunch of drawings and notes in sketch books. And rather than letting them sit there, like lonely little cabbages in the allotment of life, I thought I’d do something else with them.

That’s where you come in.

You see, it turns out, if you put enough stamps on anything, the Royal Mail will deliver it (provided it’s not bitey or on fire). You just have to make sure it’s got an address too, and then whatever you’re planning on putting in the post will go on a magical adventure through the Post Office, the sorting depot and then into a van, with a cheery ginger postman and his black and white cat. (A lot of what I know comes from cartoons.)

And now, this item has now arrived at your door. But a plank letter isn’t just a plank. Or a letter.

It’s also a shelf.

Why is that?

Well, do you see those screws in the wood? Take them out and a bracket will fall off.

That bracket can be used (along with his three friends) to attach the shelf to the wall. Just reattach it using the little screws into the plank of wood (there’s some red dots to guide where they go) and use the longer ones to attach the brackets to the wall.

You might be wondering “why have you done that, Andy?” Well, a better question is…

What do shelves do?

They raise things up.

And raising things up is important.

And what you want to raise up is totally up to you. What you put on it isn’t for me to say.

I can’t tell you what to do. I’m not a shelf expert. I didn’t do a GCSE in Shelfology, or study advanced Shefling for my Degree, But it’s probably big enough to take a small sized watermelon. Or a petite brick. (I wouldn’t put anything too heavy on it. If you want to do that, you might  break. If you want to make the shelf more robust, some sturdier brackets might be in order. In fact, you probably should do that.)

So maybe you’ll find a nice use for this shelf.

Maybe you could keep a little trophy on it for awarding to someone who is particularly well behaved.

Maybe you could keep a magic wand on it and every time someone nearby has a great idea or tries really hard they get a Zap of Awesomeness from a nearby grown up.

Or maybe you can just put it *really* high up and hide your secret supply of fairy cakes there.

But at any rate, I hope you find it useful.

That shelf has lots of lovely ideas I came up with that haven’t gone anywhere yet. And they need somewhere to live in the meantime. So if you can just promise to take good care of it for now, that will do me just fine.

Best wishes,

 

Andy