A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 1 June 2021 - T for Russian newspapers and Dutch national costume

 Hello, good morning lovely ladies!

It-s Tuesday again and time for our T-Party! Yes, the famous T-Party hosted by Elizabeth and Bleubeard. All you need to join in the fun is an image of (or even a reference to) a beverage.

That said, I'm going to start off with my postcard for today. This one comes from Russia as you might have guessed. It depicts a newspaper from 1910. That is all I can decipher. 

It was sent to me by Ulyana at the end of March. She writes that the temperature is below freezing where she is and she also draws a little sun, so I assume it is sunny as well.

Let's get to the matter at hand. This is the rice I cooked the other day. It has bacon lardons, onion, bell peppers and sweetcorn. My drink is a Bitter Kas (non alcoholic Campari)

On Sunday morning our drink was rooibos tea (redbush) with scrambled eggs on rye. We don't get any other bread than white around here, so when I found this rye bread in one of the supermarkets, I jumped for joy!

Hubby is on his week of 'rest', meaning he is not taking any chemo pills this week. So we have been out with our friends (and neighbors) for lunch and instead of ordering a dessert, we went to our favoraite ice cream shop.

Eusebio (the owner) makes his own ice cream to traditional recipe. All natural ingredients. He spends the winter (when they are closed) making the cones. They are deliciously biscuity.

This is the outside. I might have shown you this before...

When my husband is having his chemo, he can't have anything cold. It is one of those side effects of this particular chemo therapy. He can't eat or touch anything cold. So ice cream is out of the question. But during his week off, the effects are reduced, so he is so happy he can have his beloved ice cream!

Yesterday, we had a professional plumber roll up as we have ordered a water softening system. In our village we have very hard water, and appliances break down within a couple of years because of the 'kettle stone'. 

This thing will pay for itself in a year's time. 

I had taken everything off the shelves in my pantry thinking I would not be able to get at anything, but look! Plenty of room, so all my items can go back on the shelf.

Now for something completely different. Our Dutch friend down the road had his parents visiting this past week. As we know the parents well, we couldn't wait to get together, but had to wait until hubby's rest week. So we finally got together the other day. The village where they come from is called Spakenburg, it is one of the few villages in the Netherlands where people still wear traditional costume. Nowadays only older people do, unfortunately. When our friend's grandmother died, she left all her traditional dress. 

I have permission from my friend's parents, Jan and Maaike to write about grandma, and they have kindly given me a couple of photos of her.

Here she is:

Her name is(was) Lutje Huijgen.

This is what the costume looks like (photo from internet):

And from the back:

Those shoulder parts are starched pieces of material. They are called 'kraplappen'. Oma (grandma) Lutje had many of them. Ladies that have lost a loved one have darker 'kraplappen'. This again is from the internet, just to show you:

My friend Maaike had inherited a lot of those shoulder strips. 

She painstakingly 'de-starched' them, and then sewed them together to make a curtain for her daughter-in-law in Spain.

The red band is also part of the national costume.

You can see Jan (Maaike's husband)'s legs (He is holding up the curtain). The 'kraplappen'  Oma Lutje is wearing in the photo is right at the top. (Sort of Paisley motif).

Of course I had to pose too:

Here is Oma Lutje again. Maaike has made masks from the sleeves. 

She is a clever lady. She has an Instagram page called Eco_Maaike for those who are interested. (In English).

That was it from me today. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings. 

Happy T-Day everyone!

Hugs,

Lisca