Tuesday 31 July 2018

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 31 July 2018 - T for Sisters, musical instruments and books....


Hello lovely peeps,
It's T-Party time again! I will share a beverage with you later, but first I would like to show you this week's postcards. I will show you one that I sent and one that I received this week.

This is the one I sent:


The person I sent it to wanted something food-related. This is an image of a WWII poster about learning to preserve food. 

The card I received comes from Bulgaria. It was sent by Erina, a Russian lady who lives in Bulgaria, in Sofia. She sent me this gorgeous collection of musical instruments. I love it!



Erina writes that she loves visiting art exhibitions and playing scrabble. (Imagine Scrabble in Russian characters...)

The stamps she used are brilliant! The one on the right is about Postcrossing! The one on the left celebrates the Bulkgarian presidency of the Council of the EU.

Now I have come to my beverage , as I am joining Elizabeth and Bluebeard at Altered Book Lover.

My sister and her hubby came to visit us recently and we took them to our local round the corner for drinks and tapas:

The fritters in the middle are a tapa, which is free. They try to give you something different every time you order a drink.
 Here are me and sis. She is drinking rosé. 

The last photo is not one of mine. It was taken by a friend from the photo club. I have included it so you can see the area that we live in.
The landscape is called 'badlands' and the hill in the back ground is called Jabalcon. The lake on the far left is the reservoir Negratin. The two villages are Freila and Zujar.

I have another beverage related thing:

It's a book that I read recently. I saw that Erika also has some book reviews on her blog.  I've come with a few more that I personally enjoyed. 

This one (with T-Party appropriate cover) , called The Sister Circle I found delightful. It is the first of a series and I would gladly read some more. Here is the Amazon synopsis:
Suddenly widowed with no means of support, Evelyn Peerbaugh 
hangs a “for rent” sign in front of her large Victorian home and her life 
changes ways she never dreamed of.

In a matter of days she becomes the owner of a busy boardinghouse 
and must now cope with the lives and emotions of the most 
incompatible group of women ever gathered under one roof. How will 
Evelyn manage? What will her future be like now?

“The Sister Circle,” Book One of this charming contemporary series, 
introduces Peerbaugh Place, the quaint Victorian house that becomes 
a refuge to seven women of vastly different ages, personalities, and 
backgrounds. This heartwarming and timeless story reveals their 
struggles and triumphs, as the women forge a special bond of 
sisterhood and come together through faith and love.

The second one is The Atheist and the Parrotfish. A bit more meaty and engaging, but equally enjoyable. 

Doctors tend to the needs of their patients, but patients give meaning to the lives of their doctors. So it is for Cullen Brodie, a twice-divorced California nephrologist, and Ennis Willoughby, a troubled cross-dresser whose life is saved by a rare heart-and-kidney transplant.
Cullen's bitter disbelief in the afterlife is tested when Ennis begins to exhibit tastes and characteristics uncannily similar to those of his female organ donor--whose first name Ennis inexplicably knows. When Ennis becomes convinced that the donor's soul has inhabited him, Cullen sides with Ennis's psychiatrist, who tells Ennis he has subconsciously confused his emerging transgender personality with the imagined characteristics of his female donor.
While his psychiatrist coaxes forth Ennis's female side, Cullen is summoned to the South Pacific by an old lover for a reckoning of their past. On the island paradise of Rarotonga, he is forced to confront the heartrending truth about a tragedy that destroyed their college romance--a tragedy Cullen blames on religious zealotry.
Filled with resentment over what he has learned, Cullen returns to Southern California determined to shatter Ennis's delusion of ensoulment. But Ennis's eerie knowledge of his donor's greatest secret forces Cullen to consider the unimaginable: Is it possible he is witness to a verifiable incident of transmigration, tangible proof of a human soul? Or is he witness instead to the miracle of being transgender? Male and female at once, the glory of one and the glory of the other, both shining--like a parrotfish, another miracle of nature, changing gender apace, beside its glorious, ever-changing hue.

There you are! That's me done. Come and join the party with anything drink related. 

Have a lovely week and see you soon,

Happy T-Day,
Lisca


Friday 27 July 2018

A Postcard A Day - Friday 27 July 2018 - Friday Smiles


Good morning everyone! How are you all? Today is Friday when we share our smiles of the week.

My first smile, or should I say giggle, is this card from Finland. Those two ladies made me giggle. They remind me of the two aunties by artist Inge Löök. This is obviously a photo, but it is in the same vein.
 The stamp is colourful and upbeat. I love that yellow flower!
Talking of flowers: my cactus has flowered again. This time I was home to enjoy it. (Last time it happened we were on holiday and my friend, who looks after the cat and the plants, sent me a photo on Whatsapp)
 I have decided to re-pot this plant as there are many 'babies' and I think it needs a bit more space.
 The pot is a typical ceramic pot from this area, decorated in this particular way.
A few days ago, our neighbour Serafin brought me a bag of apricots in the evening. Early the next morning he brought me another. We were just about to  drive to our cave house in the country, so we decided to take the apricots with us and make the jam in the cave kitchen
So we gathered all our jam making equipment and we washed, removed stones and chopped.
 Then in the pan it goes with a good amount of sugar. (I weighed everything)
 Bring to the boil etc.

It took ages, absolute ages! We have a thermometer and according to the instructions the liquid is ready when the temperature reaches 104 degrees centegrade. But it wouldn't go above 90! We cooked it so much, the jam burnt on the bottom of the pan. In the end we wanted to go to bed, so we poured it in the prepared jars and hoped for the best.




The next day I went online to find out what went wrong. Well, I had completely forgotten that the boiling temperature changes with altitude. There we were at 1220m (more than 3000 feet) and the boiling point is at 90 degrees....

Now for some funnies (All Mr Bean):



Have a fab weekend,
Keep smiling,
Lisca

Tuesday 24 July 2018

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 24 July 2018 - T for sangria and pasta

Hello lovely people,
It's already the 24th of July! How time flies. 
I have received some postcards this week so I will show you one that arrived and one that I have sent myself.
The one I received came from Croatia. It was sent to me by Erika who is from the Czech Republic but is working in Croatie during the summer.

She used a beautiful stamp with corals on it:
The second card is the one I sent. People often ask for typical national dishes or drinks. Well, in Spain, Sangria springs to mind.

  It is made of red wine, fruit and a dash of brandy. I don't drink it myself as a lot of places use the cheapest wine and make it taste horrible or add sugar, in which case it becomes impossibly sweet.


 I would like to show you some photos taken  not long ago when my sister and her hubby were visiting us. We went for a walk as sis has to do her 10.000 steps. Here is our house from a distance: the white building.
 You can clearly see it is built over 4 floors. The top floor is at street level of the centre of the village. At the moment we are living in the ground floor flat where it is much cooler as part of it is built in the rock.



We do not live near the coast (nearest beach one and a half hours drive) but there is a beautiful lake on our doorstep so to speak and we took our visitors there. (My hubby and I are on the left).

I've just realized that the sangria photo would qualify for the T-party hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard at Altered Book Lover. But I had already prepared a photo of our meal yesterday.



I made Pasta In Bianco at my hubby's request. It is cooked pasta with lots of freshly grated Parmesan or Grana Padana cheese, and a generous dollop of butter. Yum! I poured myself a cool glass of Portughese white wine, so be my guest!

Have a lovely T-Day y'all,
Hugs,
Lisca





















Friday 20 July 2018

A Postcard A Day - Friday Smiles - Friday 20 July 2018

Hello lovely peeps,
Have you had a good week? Plenty to smile about? I have, but I haven't taken any photos....

What I do have is postcards. A whole week of nothing and then all of a sudden I get seven in my mailbox! One of them was in a large envelope with lots of interesting looking stamps on it:
It's from Ukraine. After some digging I found out that the round 'coins' are not coins but they are State signets of Ukraine. Here is some info in case you are interested:

The 'coin' on the top left is the Signet of Ukrainian Central Council , and the bearded gentleman is Mykhailo Hrushevskyi (1866-1934). He was a Ukrainian and Soviet academician, politician, historian, and statesman, one of the most important figures of the Ukrainian national revival of the early 20th century. (Wikipedia)

Top right you can see the Great Signet of Ukrainian People' Republic with Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1880-1951). He was a Ukrainian statesman, political activist, writer, playwright, artist, who served as 1st Prime Minister of Ukraine. (Wikipedia)

Then bottom left is the Draft of the Signet of the State Secretaryship of Ukrainian State - Pavlo Skoropadskyi (1873-1945). He was a Ukrainian aristocrat, military and state leader, decorated Imperial Russian Army and Ukrainian Army general of Cossack heritage. (Wikipedia) 

and bottom right is the Signet of the Directory of Ukrainian People's Republic - Symon Petliura (1879-1926). He was a Ukrainian politician and journalist. He was the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Army and the President of the Ukrainian National Republic during Ukraine's short-lived sovereignty in 1918–1921, who led Ukrain's struggle for independence following the fall of the Russian empire in 1917..(Wikipedia)

This is the delightful card:
Oksana writes that her country is big enough to have cultural differences between the regions, and therefore different national costumes.

History lesson over. What have I done this week? Nothing really interesting. We have not been out as it is too hot to go anywhere. 

On Sunday we celebrated the birthday of a lovely lady who has Down's syndrom. She is now in her late 50s and she loves photos and bracelets. Everyone gives her bracelets and I try to do something with photos. I had a small kit lying about to make a little photo book. So I quickly put a little thing together:
There were 8 pages in total. Here she is opening her present:
Now for some funnies:




Have a lovely weekend all of you,
Stay safe and keep smiling,
Lisca

Tuesday 17 July 2018

A Postcard A Day - T for... more Denmark with beer


Hello lovely peeps, how are you all? I'm sorry that I didn't do many visits last week. Tuesdays is always awkward for me as we are out of the house all day . I'll try better this week.

It's Tuesday so how about joining the T-Party called T for Tuesday at Elizabeth and Bluebeard's. All you need to do is share a beverage.

Today we celebrate our 5th anniversary! So Happy Anniversary T-Gang!

My beverages today come from Denmark (again). We visited the island of Moen where we stopped for lunch at a nice looking place:


 As it was nice weather we chose to sit ourside.
 Our Danish friends did the ordering (neither of us speaks any Danish). My hubby ordered stout and I wanted a malted beer.
 This is what arrived:
 The stout turned out to be liquorice flavoured stout. Hubby does not like liquorice so we swapped.
 It was delicious! And this was my lunch.And what is that yellow stuff in the little dish?
 It was an egg yolk. Don't ask....
 This is a little church we walked passed and of course I wanted to go inside.
 The organ.
 All the Danish churches we have seen so far have had ships hung up.
 This is where the preacher would stand.
 This is part of the organ.
 Another view of the ship.
This wooden structure houses the church bell. Sorry, it is not very visible.

I haven't got a postcard for today. I didn't receive any and I didn't send any either. (Must do better)

That is it from me today.
Have a fab T-Day,
Hugs,
Lisca