A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 28 Feb 2017 - T for Slovakia, sunshine and orzo

Good morning T-gang! Welcome to T-party

Actually, I don't drink coffee, but I thought this image was quite appropriate for today. I probably have told you this before, but I drink stuff called orzo. This is what the pack looks like. If you enlarge it you can probaly read what it says:

Here I have just filled my coffee maker. It looks a bitlike coffee, but it's a roasted grain with aniseed.

My postcard for today comes from Slovakia. Hmm, yes, I had to look it up too. It borders Austria, Poland, Hungary and the Ukraine. Wikipedia describes it as:  a high-income advanced economy with a very high Human Development Index,a very high standard of living and performs favourably in measurements of civil liberties, press freedom, internet freedom, democratic governance and peacefulness. 
The card comes from  a place called Banska.

I used to live near Bath in the UK and this photo looks like Bath. Natalia writes: "Here is a black and white card of Banska Stiavnica, a historic UNESCO World Heritage city. It is a mining city (banska means mine), built in the middle of an ancient vulcano mountain. The Academy of Mining was founded there in the 18th centuyry, the first technical university in the world." Strangely enough, Bath was also built in the middle of a vulcano caldera!

The stamp looks like this:

The image is from the church of the Virgin Mary in Bina.

I'm writing this late on Monday night. Tomorrow morning we are going away in our campervan. The weather has turned and it is getting warmer. We had lunch on the terrace yesterday:

Camp sites usually have wifi but it's not always sufficient for me to do much commenting, so please be patient if I don't comment immediately. 

I'll be heading now for Elizabeth and Bluebeard's website to join the T-party, where we all share something with a drink in it. Elizabeth was not very well on Sunday. I hope you are feeling better Elizabeth....

CU all soon!

Hugs,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 24th Feb 2017 - Friday Smiles

 Hello smiley people!, How are you all? Here I am again showing you what made me smile this week.

Let me show you my postcard for today:

It was sent to me from Germany by Bettina. I thought it was rather appropriate for all you sewing ladies among you. (I was going to write 'sewers', but soon realized it could be misinterpreted....lol).

This is the stamp:

A bend in the river Mosel.

This also made me smile. At last the almond trees are starting to blossom. (later than usual this year). This photo was taken on Tuesday. Spring is on its way!

Those of you who know me on Facebook will know that our cat Precious has been very ill with a type of foodpoisening. We took him to the vet who kept him in for two nights. Wednesday evening we went to pick him up and took him home again (after paying a hefty bill). Here he is, looking a bit sorry for himself. His paws have been shaved to accomodate the drips and blood tests. He is now recuperating, lying by the fireplace like Lord Muck!

When I was in Holland last month, my cousin gave me a traditional Norwegian cardigan. It had belonged to my late uncle (who was a very slender man) who bought it on holiday in Norway but then never worn it. We calculated this item must be at least 40 years old. 

I am so please with it because here in Spain I can wear it as a jacket as it seldom rains. Lynn Holland would be proud of me.

Now I should probably knit a matching cat cardi....

Here are a few cat funnies:

I will leave you with a sunset a few days ago, photographed from our house:

That's it for this Friday. I hope to see you all at Annie's A Stitch in Time and at Virginia' Rocking Your Week Friday.

Keep smiling,
God bless,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 21 Feb 2017 - T for Dutch architecture, Dutch food, an English cleaning lady and a German light house

Hello everyone! Hello T-gang!

This blog post is photo heavy as I wanted to show you some more photos of Rotterdam, show you a lovely meal that I had and of course show you my postcard for today. 

So here goes:
This is a typical street in Rotterdam called a 'singel' because it has a canal in the middle. This one is called the Heemraadsingel.

 There are some beautiful houses along here. I just love this type of architecture from the 1920s (more or less).

 Here is an example of front doors. The two houses will be the mirror image of each other.

 This is a street without a canal. It has similar type houses. This is a corner house.

 This, would you believe it, is a school. Luckily there are preservation rules in Holland that special architectural features like tiles and stained glass windows etc have to be kept when modernising buildings.

 When I took these pictures I was on my way to the station to catch a train, so I did not have time to focus on details and try out that awesome zoom on this new camera.

I was on my way to Leiden (another town in Holland) to have dinner with my sister and my cousin. I have mentioned this before on a previous blog post but I did not show you what we had for dinner. And as we are having a T-party at Altered Book Lover hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard, I must show you something with a drink in it:

 This was the entree. There were three of us but we ordered an entree for two as we thought it would be more than enough (which it was). It was absolutely delicious. There was soup, bread plus garlic butter and cheese, olives and salami, then a salad in a jar and a dish of king prawns.

 Our main was some sort of oriental pork. My cousin asked for a side dish of potato chips, and this is how it arrived:

 In a bag, on a wooden plate with a dollop of mayonnaise!
We didn't fancy desserts but ordered coffees:

Mine (on the right) was a chai latte which I had already started drinking (lest you think I only got half a glass), my sister had an Irish coffee (in the middle) which has Irish whiskey in it , and my cousin had a frappocino or a lattecino or something like that (Milky coffee with a frothy head I would call it). The biscuits are typical Dutch spice biscuits called 'spekulaas'.

Now for my card. It arrived this morning from Germany from someone called Regina. She writes the heading in Dutch, then one line in German, then two in Spanish, the salutation in Dutch and 'Happy Postcrossing' in English. What fun!

I love the card. I put in my profile that I like black and white cards, but I wonder if she knew that I really like street art? It doesn't say on the card who the artist is but I think it could be a Banksy. It certainly is his style.

The stamps are nice too:

The flowers are normal German stamps and I have seen them before.. But the light house series is really beautiful. I think light houses are becoming obsolete with all the satellite technology, so it is great that people make an effort to keep light houses in peoples minds.

Happy T-Day to all,

Have a good week,

Keep smiling,

LIsca

A Postcazrd A Day - Friday 17 Feb 2017 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely smiley peeps,

I still haven't got over the bug that floored me last week. I'm taking it easy. When I look in the mirror I do laugh because I look like a clown! My nose is red from constantly blowing my nose, and my nose has become infected so there are some unsightly red crusts as it is slowly healing. What a state to get in! ("At the price of chips" my hubby would add). 

My postcard for today arrived this morning from Germany. It is a painting by George Dunlop Leslie (1835-1921):

The painting is entitled: "Alice in Wonderland". A lovely picture.
(I feel a bit like the girl on the couch. A bit lethargic).

It rained in the night this week (It hardly ever rains here so that is something woth mentioning). When I woke up the terrace had red sand on it so I gues the rain came from the Sahara!

I went to buy some olive oil yesterday and had to walk to the other end of the village. I walked past a lot of nice houses. They all look something like this, as this is the typical building style here:

I walked along the only decent bit of grafitti we have in our village:

 I always feel it is winking at me...

When I got home I was so tired I had to lie down. But on the bright side: I had done more than 7000 steps! (I have a Fitbit. I bought it in Holland while I was spending some of my money. My pedometer didn't work anymore. It was time for a new one)

Let's keep smiling. Here are a few funnies:

All in all, my week has been fairly low-key with not much happening.

How has your week been? I'm going to link up with Virginia at Rocking your World Friday and Annie at A Stitch in Time.

Have a good week with lots of smiles,
Hugs,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - 14 Feb 2017 - T for hearts, books, drinks and a cockerel

Hello T-Gang,

Happy St Valentine's! Are you doing anything special today? I got my hubby a card, for the first time I must say. We don't celebrate Valentine's day but when I was in Holland my sister spotted this card and suggested it to me. Good choice:

We will be going out for lunch as we normally do every Tuesday and I don't know if that particular restaurant will do anything special for Valentine's Day. We shall see.

My postcard today comes from Canada:

Everyone knows I love books, so this card was a hit! I just love those colourful spines. I recognise the type of books as my dad had several of this type on the bookshelf. They are of the Penguin Poetry series of the 1960s.

The stamps is about the Chinese New Year, the year of the cockerel:

 A very nice design I think.

I want to share a photo from Holland. This was taken at my mum's local supermarket:

What is that you may well ask. In Holland people pay a small deposit on plastic bottles, and also glass bottles, especially beer bottles and large soft drink bottles (soda) such as Coca cola bottles (1 1/2 lt ). You pop your empty bottles through the hole at the top, one by one. When you've finished you press the green button and out comes a coupon for the due amount. At the till the cashier will give you either the money or deduct it from your grocery bill. The black pipe on the right is for people who don't want the change (or can't be bothered). You put your coupon in the pipe and the amount will be given to charity. The large space at the bottom is for crates. A lot of people buy their beer by the crate, so a full crate of empties will get you quite a bit of money back, as you pay a deposit for each bottle and also a deposit for the crate itself. I think it is a brilliant idea that has been working in Holland for more than 20 years as I can remember it when I lived there. It is being well used as I had to wait for people to finish before I could take the picture.

Well, this is the tea party and still no drink in sight. I will look through my photos to see if I have something with a drink in it...

This is at my mum's. I had bought a box of starmix infusion (with star anise) which I love.I thought it was appropriate today.

I will finish with some heart related street art, all (apart from one) by Banksy.

That is it from me. Happy T-Day to all and hope to see you at Elizabeth's tea party at Altered Book Lover.

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 10 Feb 2017 - Friday Smiles

Hi Peeps, It's Friday again when we post all things positive and look for the silver lining around the clouds in our week.

My week has been 'grotty', as in: I have a stinking cold and am not feeling up to anything! 

The positive things of my week have been (apart from lying in bed) sitting by the fire with my hubby and the cat:

Our cat likes to be stroked on his tummy. (But only by my husband).

Another nice thing this week was my Crazy Carrot Cake. That turned out so delish! (What a shame I can't taste anything)

One of the delights of the week is seeing some mail in our mailbox. I got six cards this week. I'll share this one from Portugal.

It is a black and white photo of couples dancing in a village, photographed by Georges Dussaud (sounds French) in 1989. As I am interested in photography, of course I had to look him up. Here is a website I found that shows several other photos by him taken in the Alto Douro wine district. 
The lady that sent it to me commented on the patch on the white trousers of the man on the right. She says it is the logo of her favorite football team!
This is the stamp:

 Do they ski in Portugal? Again, I had to look that up. Apparantly in the north of Portugal, in the Serra Estrela, there is a ski resort.

Now for some funnies. This first one is not particularly funny but a curious traffic sign I spotted in Rotterdam when I was there:

I was walking with my friend and her dog (on the left) when I spotted it.

I am not a morning person, so this image spoke to me.

Baby logic....

I will be linking up with Annie at A Stitch in Time and Virginia at Rocking Your World Friday (If I can get myself out of bed...). I can't promise you many comments if I am feeling as grotty as I am feeling now.

Have a good week with lots of smiles,
Hugs (well no, I have a cold, so no hugs),
Lisca