A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 7 September 2021 - T for books, books and more books (and a bit of hail)

 

Hello lovely peeps. 

I would like to show you two postcards I received this summer. Both are about books. This first one comes to me from Poland. It was sent to me in June by a girl called Hania. The card features some beautiful old books. They don't make them like that anymore. I remember the Reader's Digest used to imitate that and publish old looking books. But what's the point of buying abridged books? Still many people did as I remember.

The stamps are interesting.

Issued on October 7, 2020, a postage stamp  "Collegiate Stargard - Jewel of Western Pomerania" was introduced.

The stamp shows a fragment of a photo showing part of the altar, side pillars and part of the vault of the Collegiate Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of the World in Stargard. Along the bottom edge there is the inscription "POLSKA" and the value "4 zlotys", as well as the inscription "Collegiata Stargard - Jewel of Western Pomerania"

This is a clearer photo of it:

Stargard is a city in North-west Poland with about 70,000 inhabitants. This is what the church looks like:

And here is an image from the other side:

The postcard was in an envelope and Hania had put cute stickers on the envelope to embellish it:

A handbag on the front,

And some lipstick on the back.

This beautiful metal feather was stuck on the back of the postcard. Really lovely.

My second card comes from Italy:

It shows a ladybird (I think in America they call it a ladybug). This particular ladybird is the logo of the famous Ladybird Books.

They were very popular in the 1960s as educational books for children. I particularly like the 'Wel-loved tales'.

In the 1960s and 1970s the company's Key Words Reading Scheme (launched in 1964) was heavily used by British primary schools, using a reduced vocabulary to help children learn to read. This series of 36 small-format hardback books presented stereotyped models of British family life – the innocence of Peter and Jane at play, Mum the housewife, and Dad the breadwinner.

But recently there are many spoofs for the adult market, like this one:

The stamp on the card is this one:

As you can see it has not been canceled. 

Here is an aerial photo of the piazza:

The symbol of Naples is definitely Piazza del plebiscito. Located in the heart of the city, surrounded by the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola, the Royal Palace, the Prefecture’s Palace and the Salerno Palace is one of the largest squares in Italy .

Here is another image with the Bay of Naples in the background:

Continuing on the theme of books, I have just thought that I haven't told you about the books that I have read for along time. 

I have discovered three authors that I like very much and I have been reading their books over the summer. The first one is Lucinda Riley, a very popular writer. My mother had read a series of books about 7 sisters and was very enthusiastic. (She has audio books of course). I have not read these yet but I managed to buy The Butterfly Room and Hothouse Flower.

The blurb of The Butterfly room:

Posy Montague is

approaching her seventieth birthday. Still living in her beautiful family home, Admiral House, set in the glorious Suffolk countryside where she spent her own idyllic childhood catching butterflies with her

beloved father, and raised her own children, Posy knows she must make an agonising decision. Despite the memories the house holds, and the exquisite garden she has spent twenty-five years creating, the house is crumbling around her, and Posy knows the time has come to sell it. Then a face appears from the past – Freddie, her first love, who abandoned her and left her heartbroken fifty years ago. Already struggling to cope with her son Sam’s inept business dealings, and the sudden reappearance of her younger son Nick after ten years in Australia, Posy is reluctant to trust in Freddie’s renewed affection. And unbeknown to Posy, Freddie– and Admiral House – have a devastating secret to reveal . . .

I did like Posy as she is exactly my age and I could identify with her. The story goes back to her youth and we learn something about her life which has not always been easy. We also meet her sons, who are very different from each other. There are twists and surprises here and there and every chapter we understand a bit more about the mystery,and the book kept me interested until the very end. 

The Hothouse Flower is really a holiday read. It is in essence a romance story with a bit more to it, as part of it is set ln Bangkok during WWII and now. I personally know Bangkok and it is described well. (apart from the 'colonial architecture' . Thailand was never a colony.)

The modern-day story centres around Julia Forrester, who grew up visiting an estate where her grandfather worked as a gardener, and was a particular expert in orchids. Recovering from a family tragedy in France, she meets Kit Crawford, the heir to the estate. The estate has fallen on hard times and he’s looking to sell. A diary uncovered here leads to the unravelling of a story featuring family secrets stretching back to the end of World War II. Involving an earlier heir to the estate’s affair with a Thai woman working at The Oriental hotel, the historical story shifts to Bangkok and briefly Ko Chang.
The whole story moves swiftly and is well paced. The hothouse flower refers to orchids that feature heavily in the book and also to a Thai lady. 

Another writer I like very much is Kate Quin. I had already read the historical novel The Alice Network some time back.

 (In this enthralling historical novel, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.)

And now I have read The Rose Code, which was the best book I have read for a long time.

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn is a book about three female code breakers -- Osla, Mab and Beth -- at Bletchley Park during WWII. The women form a friendship (and a book club) over the years, but a betrayal and traitor among their colleagues lands one of them in locked up in an asylum in the years after the war.

I found all three protagonists very interesting and rooted for all three of them. One of the sub-plots featured Prince Philip marrying (the then) Princess Elizabeth. And very interestingly at the end of the book, the author explains which of the characters and situations are real and which are fictional. 

The third author I wanted to mention is Rhys Bowen. I have already read Above the Bay of Angels (About Queen Victoria in the south of France and her female chef), and The Tuscan Child (RAF pilot gets shot down over Tuscany during WWII and falls in love with a local girl), both historical novels which I really loved. Now I have read The Venice Sketchbook:

Again I really liked this one. Here is a summary:

Caroline Grant is struggling to accept the end of her marriage when she receives an unexpected bequest. Her beloved great-aunt Lettie leaves her a sketchbook, three keys, and a final whisper…Venice. Caroline’s quest: to scatter Juliet “Lettie” Browning’s ashes in the city she loved and to unlock the mysteries stored away for more than sixty years.

The story goes back and forth to Juliet's time spent in Venice during the WWII and Caroline in the present finding out what the keys are for and recognizing what's in the sketchbook. 

I have also bought The Victory Garden and Farleigh Field. I'm looking forward to reading those.

That's enough about books!

Let me tell you what is happening in my life: We have had our first egg! We have had our chickens now for more than a week. They have settled in after a pecking start trying to establish the pecking order. Two days ago we found our first egg. 

Of course there is no way of knowing which of the 'ladies' has gifted us with an egg...

On Sunday after church (2 pm) our friends mentioned that they had nothing prepared for lunch, and I replied that we didn't either. They then suggested we go out for lunch together. So we did!

Today is Elizabeth and Bleubeard's T-Party. Anyone with a drink or drink reference can join. So the above photo qualifies. And the next one does too:

Elizabeth mentions that we eat a lot. Actually, we have three meals a day. But I must admit that hubby went a bit overboard this time and had eyes that were bigger than his stomach:

It was a hamburger. The meat layer (which is difficult to see) was 1 inch thick! He actually ate all of it!

And this was our desert....

Note the two spoons. We shared.

We have had a freak hail storm. The weather is still warm and sunny. But a few days ago, out of the blue, we had this hail storm. This photo was taken by a friend from his car.

A lot of cars were damaged and crops ruined. Luckily we did not have any damage (Our vehicles are under cover).

The little park behind our house was covered in leaves and debris from the trees.

And this was my little patio:

That is it from me today.

Happy T-Day all!

Keep safe,

Hugs,

Lisca