A Postcard A Day - Friday 6 December 2019 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely people,

Here we are again on Friday where we can share some smiles. The postcards that I want to share today both have smiley faces. The first is a gorgeous photo of Her Majesty, a card I received a couple of weeks ago from the UK.

Here is another 'Her Majesty'. It is the (now abdicated) queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. The photo must be old as her husband, prince Claus, died in 2002.

The stamps are really nice. The orange coloured stamp is a special summer stamp. The price is 44+22 cents. The 22 cents extra is for charity. In this case the whole series of stamps is about loneliness among older people. The writing on the stamp reads: "Lies (82), has been teaching ballet for 40 years. Thanks. Your students."

I've had a lovely week, and you? Have you had many things to smile about? 

I have this Becky Higgins Project Life app on my phone. It's so simple (and free) that i spend 5 minutes each evening to put together these layouts/collages. I love doing that (as you can see...)

I noticed the municipal Christmas tree had been put up as every year in the little park behind our house. I think it's hideous, but at night when the lights are on it's not so bad.

 On Saturday morning we woke up to a thick fog, but half an hour later the sky was blue and it was then sunny all day. 
I bought a large persimmon, and consequently made a persimmon up-side-down cake with a recipe that I had found in a magazine. It was delicious. 
We held our Spanish language group at our house on Saturday, and although I had baked a cake, one of us had a birthday and another member had made a birthday cake for her. So we had two cakes!

 Sunday was a sunny day too and after church we came straight home and had coffee on the terrace. Hubby decided to get changed, stay out and paint the railing. Good man!
As it was the first of December and because we  haven't put up any Christmas decorations (we're going away), I lit some scented candles.

 Monday was a strange day as for some reason, the power went off in the morning. (They usually don't bother warning us if there are repairs to be done). We have a wood burner so the heating wasn't effected, and I have a gas cooker. But of course there is no internet. So I did all those little jobs that 'get shelved' like sewing my husband's work clothes. He needed buttons sewn on and the seams of his crotches often need re-sewing. 
In the afternoon, on the way to our weekend home in Gor, we went shopping in Baza. We needed new windscreen wipers and the guy in the shop just took off the old and fitted the new ones. Now that is service worthy of a smile!

We have a tv and a DVD player in our weekend home and we watched a DVD: Casino Royale. I don't particularly like Daniel Craig, but he is a good actor.
 We spent the night there and the next day we had lunch at a nearby restaurant.
In the evening we went to a prayer meeting at our pastor's house and there were a group of youngsters there. That brought a smile to our faces.

On Wednesday I changed the bedding to a more festive winter design. (Smile)

When I was at a local shop I spotted this pan. A while ago I dropped the lid of my cast aluminium pan and I'm looking for a replacement. This one is a smaller version of the one I have but it is too expensive. I would need the bigger size which would set me back 48 Eur. I'm going to have a look on the internet and see if I can get it cheaper.

I baked a lovely Dutch appeltaart. I think Annie might have had the pleasure of tasting appeltaart. I made it for our pastor and his wife.

 They (our pastor and his wife) asked if we would like a two-seater settee and could we come and collect it. So hubby borrowed a friend's car (with a tow hook) and we went to collect it on Thursday morning. We don't need a settee, but this one can be stored in the garage until the cave house that hubby is renovating, is ready.

I went to the post office yesterday to post some Christmas cards and birthday cards. We have a lot of birthdays around Christmas in our family. I also collected a parcel. I bought a bag-tidy which houses all the paraphernalia that is in my bag and the whole thing then sits in my bag so that if I need anything, I just pull out this bag-tidy and whatever I'm looking for will be easy to find. Huge smile!

As you see there was lots to smile about this week. I'm going over to Annie's at A Stitch In Time and also to Virginia at Rocking Your Week Friday.

Of course, as usual, I will put some funnies at the end.

Have a lovely weekend,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 3 December 2019 - T for volcanoes, sea food and mugs

Good morning lovely people!

I have been having problems with power outs and all day we have been without power. when the power finally came back on, there was a power surge that blew our system. So here I am, In the middle of the night. Fed up and I'm afraid it's going to be a quicky.

First off is a card from Germany:

It i entitled: Dancing with the Devil  at the volcano in Fimmvörðuháls, April 010, South Iceland.

The tamps are beautiful as well as interesting.

 Philippine "Pina" Bausch (27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009) was a German dancer and choreographer who, with a blend of movement, sound, and prominent stage sets, and with performers during the development of a piece (a style now known as Tanztheater), became an influence in the field of modern dance from the 1970s on.

The second card also comes from Germany. It features those typical German cookies that they make at Christmas time. I had a German colleague that used to make them (and bring them into work too.) They are really delicious.

I'm going to link up with Elizabeth and Bleubeard at altered Book Lover.  Please join us there with a beverage in your blog post.
My qualifyer is a mug (without a drink) which might make you smile.

In our language group Intercambio, I help Spanish people with their English. There are so many exception to the rules that it becomes really difficult to learn English. This is one of them:

The weekend before,  I went to Fuengirola (South Spain) for a conference. Luckily I didn't go for the weather because it was awful. There was a gale blowing. This was the view from the hotel. Look at those poor palm trees. I know Elizabeth loves palm trees, but these look rather wild.

I took the opportunity to eat a lot of fish and sea food, as my hubby doesn't like fish. So here was my chance.

Here is another drink, a Radler (Lager beer with lemon), and we were in a Thai noodle bar. This might not seem something out of the ordinary, but believe me, if you live in rural Spain like I do then a noodle bar is a real treat! (Btw, I had rice!)

Drink, drink, drink! (Radler again)

This was the view from our room. The sea is on the left. It is a typical coastal resort. Nothing special. But I did enjoy myself because the conference was good and I got together with friends I see only once a year. (And I ate a lot of sea food)

Here are two breakfast photos. Here we are having coffee in a cup (Quite often here they serve coffee in a glass)

This is the typical Andalucian breakfast: toasted bread with oil and tomatoes plus coffee. Very nice.

Hmm, have I shown you this one before..?

That is it from me today. 

Happy T-Day all!

Take care,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Second on the 2nd (an old post)

Hello Folks! Here is a post from December 2014 I believe. We visited Valencia. 
So Happy Second on the 2nd to all!
Hugs,
Lisca

Valencia

Last week the builders had a week off and we took the opportunity to go on holiday. We took the campervan and drove to Valencia (took us 6 hours in our ‘slow coach’).

I’d never been to Valencia and we were pleasantly surprised. The Camper Parque was outside the city but next to a Metro station, so we did not have to drive into Valencia.

One lovely feature of Valencia is the (dry) Turia river that runs through the town.

In place of 120 hectares of dry riverbed, the city centre has a lush green garden split into twelve parts and full of native and non-native plants and Spanish wildlife, ponds and a zen garden, all developed by the Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill. As a real park for the people, it is also home to an athletics track, artworks, climbing walls, football pitches, cafes, ponds and flowers. Traffic is diverted over the top of the 11km-long park via bridges at several intervals.

(Funny to see palm trees grow through a hole in the bridge!)

Children can explore the Gulliver Park; an adventure playground featuring a large fibre glass model of Gulliver tied to the ground with ropes. Children can climb on it. Gulliver’s clothes make a network of slides and ladders.(Adults not allowed...)

There are beautiful buildings in the old part. We liked the train station. Estation del Nort, a modernist building, built in the Arts and Crafts style.

And we liked the National Ceramics Museum, which is housed in a palace that dates from the 15th century and was refurbished in 1740 in rococo style with a magnificent alabaster entrance. Inside, we found 18th century carriages, the 19th century rooms, medieval ceramics and an important collection of tiles.

While window shopping in town, I really liked the shops that sold beautiful fabrics that are used for making traditional costumes. In the photo you can see shawls, hair combs, a fan, beautiful fabric, and cotton under garments.

The modern part of Valencia is architecturally just as spectacular as the old part. The Opera House, 

the Science Museum, 

the Oceanografic and the Agora and the surrounding park are worth more than one visit. 

We spent a day in the Oceanografic, a huge aquarium with a dolphin show and whale and shark tanks.

There is a very interesting covered food market 

and of course I must mention that Valencia is where paella comes from. 

There are loads of lovely restaurants. Most have outside seating which in winter have heaters. The food is great and so are the people.

I heartily recommend Valencia as a city break if you ever have the chance.

That's it for tonight, thanks for visiting.

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 29 November 2019 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely ladies, It's Friday again and I will show you some of my smiles and what I have been doing this week (Nothing much exciting I can tell ya).

First of all, let me show you some post cards. They always make me smile when they land in my postbox. This first one comes from the USA and is a vintage advert for Chesterfield gloves.

Not heard of Chesterfield Gloves? Well, they are gloves that you can put a cigarette in so you always have your ciggie at hand. I don't smoke and I don't want to encourage smoking of course, but I do like these old adverts.
Now the stamps are lovely too. 

I particularly like the middle one. It is part of a series 'State and country fairs'.

The next card also comes from the USA. Jane from Blue Ridge Mountains (North Carolina) sends me this fun tortoise. 

She also recommend two books: 'City of Girls' by Elizabeth Gilbert and 'The Flight Portfolio' by Julie Orringer. Both sound very interesting.

The stamps on this card are interesting too. I know Pearl Buck of course:

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck was an American writer and novelist. As the daughter of missionaries, Buck spent most of her life before 1934 in Zhenjiang, China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932.

But I hadn't heard of Ellsworth Kelly, or the Golden Spike. So I looked them up:

The Golden Spike is a piece of railway history. The golden spike is the ceremonial 17.6-karat gold final spike driven by Leland Stanford to join the rails of the First Transcontinental Railroad across the United States connecting the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory.

Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, color and form, similar to the work of John McLaughlin and Kenneth Noland.

Stamps are so interesting. 

Now, what have I been up to? The weekend was fab! I went to a Christian Women's Conference in Fuengirola (southern Spain). That Friday was our anniversary, so we had lunch in Granada and from there I traveled to Fuengirola with two friends.

My two friends from Granada and I shared a room in a hotel.

We used an organisation called BlaBlaCar to travel (that is something like über) and on the way back I took the train to Malaga and then the bus from there.

My Christmas cactus is starting to bloom and on  yesterday's collage you can see it in full bloom.

The weather has been lovely and we have been able to have coffee outside.

 On Wednesday we did some crafting. We made little cards that you can fold around a tea-light candle because part of the pattern is transparent.

As you can see there was much to smile about. Please do visit Annie at A Stitch In Time, (who is our host) and Virginia at Rocking Your Week Friday.

I am adding some funnies at the end as per usual.
Have a lovely weekend and take care,
Hugs,
Keep smiling!
Lisca