A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 19 August 2025 - T for stamps, paella and a ginger cat

 Hello lovely peeps,

Here I am again with a postcard and hopefully a beverage of some sorts to celebrate Elizabeth and Bluebeard's T-Party.

My postard comes from Rhode Island:

I love these Lou Paper cards as they teach me about states in the US snd they capture the essence of each state.. Of course I had to look up where this 'smallest state' in the USA is.

The stamps are gorgeous:

I love the the left stamp with the schoolbus:

Even the clock is set to ten to eight, have you noticed?

The USPS writes: "With the release of this additional ounce stamp, The US Postal Service celebrates the iconic yellow school bus and its role in ensuring millions of children get to school and home again every day.

About 2.5 million children across the United States ride a yellow bus to school every day. Besides providing reliable and safe transportation - a child is about 70 times safer riding the bus. than being driven to school in a car - these buses keep millions of cars off the road, saving billions of gallons of gasoline and preventing millions of pounds of harmful carbon dioxide emissions. Yet each bus remains its own little world, where countless childhood dramas play out, friendships form and dissolve, and daydreams are dreamed as the landscape passes."

The middle stamp has an eagle over the stars and stripes flag, and I have realized that it is the cancellation stamp and not part of the postage stamp.

Then there is the stamp on the right which celebrates the 250th anniversary of the US army and honours its service to the nation.

The USPS webssite writes this: "Predating the establishment of the Unites State by a year, the Army has been called America's first national institution. With its revolutionary-era motto 'This we'll defend', today's Army includes approximately 450.000 active-duty soldiers, more that 350.000 soldiers in the Army National Guard, nearly 190.000 soldiers in the Army Reserve, and more than 265.000 civilians who provide mission essential support, all of whom remain mindful of the Army's core values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage." 

What have I been doing here in the south of Spain? I was invited to the dedication of my best friend's three grandchildren. Her eldest daughter, Isa, lives not far from here. I can see her house from my window. The dedications took place at her house.

Three mums with three babies, all born within a month of each other. Two boys, one girl. One born in Spain, one in Germany and one in France. 

Their brother, a pastor in Granada, did the 'service', and after that there were drinks and nibbles for the 40/50 people that were invited. There was a man setting up to make paella:

The burner was lit and he started to fry stuff:

King prawns in this case. 

The prawns get taken out and the meat goes in:

It takes a couple of hours to prepare the paella so it was dark when we finally sat down to eat.

What a beauty!

For Elizabeth and Bluebeard's T-Party, here I am with a drink in my hand:

And there are probably a few drinks on the table here too

And one last photos with drinks:

Just as an aside: My house is one of those houses in the background.

That is all from me today. Shall I show you where Ronni is?

On top of the sofa cushion, looking at me. But it's not such a good photo. Let me take another one:

He mauing at me and then jumped onto the table:

Now lying peacefully next to my laptop. 

Happy T-Day all!

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 15 August 2025 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely ladies, Here we are on the 15th of August, a public holiday in southern Europe as it's the Assumption of Mary. This is the day to visit Rome (for example)m as it will be empty. Everybody has gone on holiday! Here in Caniles, everything is shut and people are also going away. I've planned to go out with my Danish friends tonight, so I hope there will be something open....

Let me show you a postcard that arrived a few days ago:

It was sent to me by Monique who lives in the Netherlands, so she wrote to me in my own language. The card itself is an image of Steampunk Mushrooms. I love steampunk, so this is a card I love. The artist is (I had to lift the washi tape to be able to read this): Melkozerova Elizaveta, a Russian artist. She has created a lot of lovely images and postcards. There is a postcard website (In Kazakhstan of all places) that sell a lot of her art and I am sorely tempted to buy some myself.

The stamp is a used stamp as she has sent this postcard in a home-made envelope with somme other bits and pieces.

The writing on the stamp reads 'sparen', which is Dutch for 'saving'.

The stamp features a 25 cent coin which I remember well. The Netherlands changed to the Euro in 1999 with a three year transition period. A banking website writes:

The euro banknotes and coins were introduced in the Netherlands on 1 January 2002, after a transitional period of three years when the euro was the official currency but only existed as 'book money'. The dual circulation period – when both the guilder and the euro had legal tender status – ended on 28 January 2002.

I don't remember much of this as I left the country in 1977.

What have I been doing? I bought an induction hob. A small one as my electricity supply can't cope with more than 2000W. Of course I can have more but I've chosen the cheapest tariff.

But that's not what I wanted to show you. This Friday blog is about smiles and this made me smile:

Ronni immediately appropriated the box and had hours of fun with it.

He's now sitting behind me on the sofa:

That's it for this Friday. I will of course leave some funnies at the end for you to chuckle over.

Now it's time to visit Annie at A Stitch In Time for some more smiles.

Have a lovely weekend,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 12 August 2025 - T for fiesta and potatoes

 

Hello lovely peeps,

I had scheduled this post, as per usual, to be posted at midnight. But i have just discovered that it hasn't posted at all. So sorry....

I have another postcard for you:

This one was sent to me from the Netherlands. It has an old Vespa type scooter on it. That takes me back it does.

Hester, who sent the card, went through the trouble of using more than one stamp. Aren't they great!

Unfortunately I have not been able to find much information about these stamps. The one on the right reads 'aalscholver', which means cormorant and I can't read the small print on the photo below as the resolution is too low.

The second from the right is a Christmas stamp from this series from 2024:

No information on any of them. 

So, what have I been doing? It's been Feria (fair) time in my village, so the whole week went by with a sort of carnaval atmosphere. I went out a few times with my friends and the village itself is bursting at its seams with visitors.

I wanted to go and see a performance of a local singer called Maria del Tango. She is quite well known in the region and she grew up here. She has an amazing voice.

It's a bit flamenco-ish of course as I live in Andalusia. (I don't know if the video works).

My friend Antonia and I made sure we got seats so we came early and ordered some drinks and snacks:

As it's T for Tuesday, this will be my qualifier. They only sold beer, so that's what I had as I don't drink soft drinks (soda).

Antonia took this picture of me:

Then on another night I went out again with my friends Antonia and Patricia:

We went out at 9 and queued outside a baked potato place for some supper.

It was called Don Papón. (Papa is a potato, papón is a huge potato). And huge they were:

With the topping the potato is hardly visible. It was really delicious.

We managed to get a table behind and somebody was kind enough to photograph us three ladies:

On the way back we strolled through the old part of the village:

It was a super evening.

That is all from me today. I am going to prepare the upstairs flat as I'm having my first HomeExchange guests on Wednesday. I want everything to be perfect.

Happy T-Day all,

Lisca

I have noticed the video hasn't come through and I don't know what to do about that, so here are two YouTube videos, both filmed in Caniles where I live. The first (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inVLRwYF9sA) is Maria with her mum and aunties who are teaching her an old folk song about the daughter of the miller and she does her own take on it of course.

The second (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqkbiqEKWU) one is in black and white and was recorded the winter before last, also in my village. 

This last one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoYiipVY8fo) is my favorite and it is also recorded and filmed in Caniles and has some lovely guitar playing in it as well. The venue is the recently restored tythe barn called the Posito.

A POstcard A Day - Friday 8 August 2025 - Friday Smiles

 

Good morning lovely girls! Here I am to tell you about the smiles of the past week, but first there's a cute postcard:

It was sent by Veronica who lives in Pilsen, in the Czech Republic. Pilsen is famous for its Pilsner beer.

Wikipedia writes:

Pilsen is a city in the Czech Republic. It is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 188,000 inhabitants. It is located about 78 kilometres (48 miles) west of Prague.

The city is known worldwide as the home of Pilsner beer, created by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll in the city in 1842;

today, the Pilsner Urquell Brewery is the largest brewery in the Czech Republic.

Pilsner Urquell is the world's first golden pilsner, the source of inspiration for all pilsner beers since 1842. It inspired a worldwide brewing revolution – over 70% of all beer drunk today is in the pilsner style lager.

The stamp is an interesting one:

Oh, sorry, that is a bit out of focus. Rather than take another picture, I found one on the Internet:

Wikipedia writes: Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central thinkers of the Enlightenment.

Wikipedia writes: Immanuel Kant's main philosophical focus was on transcendental idealism, which explores the relationship between experience and reason, and deontology, a moral philosophy centered on duty and the categorical imperative. He sought to reconcile empiricism and rationalism, arguing that knowledge is derived from both sensory experience and innate mental structures. His work also significantly impacted political philosophy, advocating for a world of constitutional republics and international cooperation. 

Heavens! That was a bit too highfaluting for me. Too many isms.I searched 'Kant simple' and got this: Kant's ethical theory is that morality is grounded in rationality and that any ethical principles must apply both universally and unconditionally. Kant emphasized rationality and autonomy, arguing that individuals must act without regard to personal desires or incentives.

What have I been doing? On Saturday, after our weekly Intercambio (language exchange) session, a few of us went to La Montija restauant in Baza.

They have a lovely outside seating area and one of their specialities is baked potato. I wrote about it on Tuesday.

Sunday is church and the rest of the week was generally relaxing.

I've been watching quite a bit of tv, and trying to rest after a very hectic July. 

I've started watching a tv program called Destination X, (BBC), a reality show where a group of people have to guess where they are based on clues they  earn through challenges or just through observation. It's a bit like the Traitors where  there is a lot of scheming and deviousness going on.

I'm also watching Sommerdal Murders on CH4.

They are doing season 6 but I've only just finished viewing season 1. 

Inspector Dan Sommerdal (on the right), his pathologist wife Marianne and their best friend Flemming (left).

The series is entirely filmed in Helsingør (Elsinore), Denmark, and the plot revolves around the fictionalized killings that take place in the town.

IMDb writes: "The Sommerdahl Murders" follows DCI Dan Sommerdahl as he investigates murders in the Danish coastal town of Helsingør, alongside his best friend, Detective Flemming Torp, and his wife, criminal technician Marianne. The series explores the complexities of their personal lives, as Dan and Marianne's marriage is strained, and Dan discovers Flemming is his romantic rival. The show balances murder mysteries with character-driven drama, including themes of betrayal and personal decline according to Nordic Watchlist. "

In my village we are celebrating the yearly Feria. 

It's an annual week-long festival 

of music, food, flowers, rides, sports events, fireworks, 

dancing. 

People come form far

 and wide and party all through the night.

This was the stage in front of the town hall the other 

night.

Tonight (Thursday) I'm going to see Maria del Tango, 

my favorite local singer:

That is all for today. Of course there will be some funnies at the end.

Have a lovely weekend!

Lisca