There is something rather lovely about finding an envelope on the doormat with your name written on it by somebody you know. Not a bill, not an appointment letter and not something addressed to The Occupier. An actual letter. They have become unusual enough now that we notice them.

Most of our conversations arrive instantly these days. We send a message, somebody replies, we add a heart or a thumbs-up and before long the whole exchange has disappeared among dozens of other notifications. There is nothing wrong with that. Technology has made keeping in touch extraordinarily easy. We can speak to somebody on the other side of the world while waiting for the kettle to boil, send photographs instantly and have conversations throughout the day without ever picking up a telephone.

But perhaps because communication has become so easy, receiving something somebody has actually sat down and written feels rather special.

A letter requires a little effort. Somebody has chosen the paper or card, found a pen, sat down and thought about what they wanted to say. They have written your name on an envelope, found your address, put a stamp on it and made sure it gets posted. None of that is particularly difficult, but it takes time, and time is probably one of the loveliest things we can give somebody.

There is something different about handwriting too. It is imperfect and completely individual. Words slope, letters change size, something gets crossed out and another thought gets squeezed into the margin because there wasn't quite enough room. It feels like the person who wrote it.

We recognise the handwriting of people we love in much the same way that we recognise their voices. Sometimes we know who an envelope is from before we have even opened it. An email can't really do that. Neither can a text message. However personal the words may be, they arrive on our screens looking very much like everybody else's.

Then there is the fact that letters stay.

Most of us have probably kept one at some point. A letter from a parent, a card from a grandparent, a note somebody slipped into a parcel, something a child wrote years ago or a birthday card containing a message that meant far more than the person writing it probably realised.

We put these things in drawers and boxes. Sometimes we forget they are there until we discover them again years later, and suddenly we are transported back to the person who wrote them and the moment in which they were written.

Sometimes that person is still part of our lives. Sometimes they are not. And sometimes their handwriting becomes incredibly precious because we know we will never see anything new written by their hand again.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons paper still matters. It gives words a physical existence. You can pick them up. You can hold them. You can unfold a letter written decades ago and read exactly what somebody wanted to say to you on an otherwise completely ordinary day.

We aren't suggesting abandoning WhatsApp, deleting our email accounts and returning to a world where asking somebody a simple question requires a stamp and a three day wait. There are very good reasons we stopped writing letters for most everyday communication.

But perhaps we lost something rather lovely when letters became unusual.

Writing to somebody doesn't have to mean producing six pages of beautifully constructed prose either. A postcard from somewhere you visited, a little card saying I saw this and thought of you, a thank you note or a few lines sent for absolutely no reason at all can be enough.

In fact, sending something when there isn't an occasion may be the nicest time to do it. Birthdays come with cards. Christmas comes with cards. We expect them. A handwritten note arriving on an ordinary Tuesday is different. It tells somebody that you thought about them when there was no calendar telling you that you should.

That is quite a gift.

It is one of the reasons we love stationery at Dog Desk Shop. A beautiful notebook, a lovely card or a good pen is a simple thing, but stationery invites us to slow down for a few minutes and put something on paper.

There may be somebody you haven't spoken to for a while. There may be somebody you speak to every day. Perhaps somebody did something kind for you and you never quite told them how much it meant. Or perhaps there is absolutely nothing you particularly need to say beyond I was thinking about you.

You could send them a message. It would arrive in seconds.

Or you could find a card or a piece of paper, pick up a pen and send them something they might still have tucked away in a drawer twenty years from now.

Because among all the emails, notifications and messages that arrive and disappear every day, there is still something rather wonderful about seeing your own name, written in a familiar hand, on an envelope lying on the doormat.