A Postcard A Day - Friday 18 July 2025 - Friday Smiles

 Hi everybody! 

I have been smiling all week as I have been in the company of my son from Italy and his wife and son. I don't see them very often and now I am seeing them twice in one year. (I have been to Italy for the communion of my grandson, so I was with them then).

But first the customary postcard:

I don't know what it represents. I suppose it's just a pretty composition. It comes from China and was sent by Hugo who works in Xiamen, a seaside island city in SE Fuijan.

Wikipedia writes: Xiamen, historically romanized as Amoy, is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait.

It looks very nice, I must say.

The stamps are interesting:

I don't know what Beethoven is doing on a Chinese stamp.  Let's look that up....

This is a stamp from a series Foreign Musicians issued on the 25b July 2010. There is Bach, Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart:

They issued these to coincide with  the World of Music Education Conference. 

And I have also found something about the 'peacock'. It's part of a Rare Bird series:

They issued these stamps in 1997 together with Sweden:

There was an image rubber-stamped on the card:

"Ignorantia juris neminem excusat" is a Latin legal maxim that translates to "ignorance of the law excuses no one". This principle means that a person cannot avoid legal consequences for violating a law by claiming they were unaware of its existence. In essence, everyone is presumed to know the laws of the land in which they reside. 

In don't know why that stamp is there. Is Hugo a lawyer?

What have I been up to? I have joined my son and family in Marbella. My sister lives in Marbella and has a nice house with a pool. As it is very hot here, the pool is wonderful. It was so hot, even I went in the water (I don't usually get wet)

There was a skateboard park in Marbella (near the bus station) and my grandson is quite good at that sort of thing so we took him there. It's huge. (6600 square meters)

Here he is just about to jump down a very steep slope (on his skateboard). His mother was 'having kittens' as they say. She doesn't usually watch him do this kind of thing.

One day we went to Puerto Banus to watch how the other half lives., (It's a place near Marbella where there is a harbour with huge yachts and posh cars). My grandson (and his daddy) wanted to see the Lamborghinis and Porsches etc. I'll spare you the photos of cars and yachts.

There was one 4x4 car that had a fun sticker on it:

We got to Puerto Banus by boat:

We were sailing agains the wind and every time there was a wave, we got wet and we squealed. That was fun. (On the down side: I got sunburnt).

One day my son and family went off on their own to visit Gibraltar (I wasn't interested in going there):

As they were only two and a half people going, my sister was kind enough to lend them her two-seater car, which they loved!

On the last day we visited a Van Gogh immersive exhibition in Estepona, a bit further west along the coast.

We were allowed to take pictures:

It was amazing! I had seen a similar thing last year in Madrid. The staff offered to take a picture of us in the lobby before going in:

My sister on the right, me with the black dress.

Here is another image:

Have you had any smiles this week? Please join us with yours at Annie at A Stitch In Time.

That is all from me today. There will be some funnies at the end.

In the meantime I wish you all a lovely weekend,

Lisca

Be careful how you place your ceiling lamps:

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 15 July 2025 - T for archangel, mango and palm trees

Hello lovely ladies! How are you this Tuesday?

Let me show you this postcard that my friend Maggie sent me from Italy:

She is travelling with her husband through southern Italy.

Wiipedia writes: The Sanctuary of Saint Michael the Archangel (Santuario di San Michele Arcangelo) is a Roman Catholic shrine on Mount Gargano, Italy, part of the commune of Monte Sant'Angelo, in the province of Foggia, northern Apulia. It has the dignity of a minor basilica.

It is the oldest shrine in Western Europe dedicated to the Archangel Michael and has been an important site of pilgrimage since the early Middle Ages. The historic site and its environs are protected by the Parco Nazionale del Gargano.

In 2011, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of a group of seven inscribed as Longobards in Italy: Places of Power (568-774 A.D.).

The stamp is the usual Italian European stamp which I have already featured a few times.

I am staying at my sister's at the moment. My son and his family have come over from Italy and as my sister lives near the airport, she picked them up last week and I traveled down on Friday to join them. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we'll all drive back to my house.

As today is T for Tuesday, I need to share a drink, so lets get those drinks out:

These are all the close family I have: my son and my sister. I love them very much.

Lets not forget my grandson!

It's hot here in Andalusia:

(I live just outside Baza), and I've heard this morning (Monday morning), that there has been an earthquake in Granada. Not a big one because the epicentre was in north Africa, but could be felt in southern Spain.

Today is T for Tuesday and I need to show you a drink. Well above are two drinks my sister and my son are holding.

How about this one, breakfast yesterday morning:

From left to right: my sister, my grandson, my daughter in law and my son.

I found two mango trees in the garden. Each has just one mango on it.

This one is for Elizabeth. She likes palm trees.

Want more? You've seen this one before as it is in the garden:

But I like the lighting at night.

That is all for now. My friend tells me that my cat Ronnie is missing me a lot and has been hiding in a box without eating or drinking. Now he is dehydrated and she will take him to the vet today. And we will go home tomorrow, so he should be alright then.

That is all for today ladies,

Happy T-Day to all,

Lisca

 

A Postcard A Day - Friday 11 June 2025 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely peeps, Here we are again at the end of a week and I have lots of smiles to share with you. First off is always my postcard. This one arrived yesterday:

As you can read, it's from Scranton, PA. It was sent to me by Connie, who, like me, also likes trains.

Info on the back of the card:

 

Wikipedia writes this:

Steamtown National Historic Site (NHS) is a railroad museum and heritage railroad located on 62.48 acres (25.3 ha)^[2] in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania, at the site of the former Scranton yards of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W). 

The museum is built around a working turntable and a roundhouse that are largely replications of the original DL&W facilities; the roundhouse, for example, was reconstructed from remnants of a 1932 structure. The site also features several original outbuildings dated between 1899 and 1902. All the buildings on the site are listed with the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Yard-Dickson Manufacturing Co. Site.

The stamp is the new round stamp which I think I have already featured:

It is a 32 point compass rose drawn by Lucia Wadsworth - the aunt of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - in her school geography notebook in 1794!

I found more info about her on the website of the Maine Historical Society:

A Glimpse of Lucia: Documenting Her World

In 1794, eleven-year-old Lucia Wadsworth (1783-1864) started writing in her Geometry and Geography School Book as part of her education. At that time, Bowdoin College had just been founded, President George Washington was suppressing the Whiskey Rebellion, and Eli Whitney had invented his cotton gin the year before. Portland had been a town for less than ten years, and Maine wouldn’t become a state for another 26 years.

Lucia's father, Peleg Wadsworth, had served under General George Washington in the War for Independence. After the war, Peleg settled on the outskirts of Portland, building a home, barn, outbuildings, and adjacent store on Back Street (now Congress Street). Lucia was the fifth of ten children born to Peleg and Elizabeth Bartlett Wadsworth and she lived in the structure now known as the Wadsworth-Longfellow House for almost her entire life.

The only image of Lucia that survives––or perhaps the only one that was taken––was made on her 79th birthday in 1862. On October 19, 1864, an obituary was published after a notice of her death was issued.

How interesting! I just love history!

Now, what's been happening with me here in (very hot) southern Spain?

My lovely neighbour Dian has baked a German cherry bread pudding (Kirschmichel). 

She lives on her own too so I had to help her eat it:

This was half the pudding! Bang went the diet! But it was so yummy! Thank you Dian.

This morning (Thursday) I joined the ladies of my gym/Pilates group in the village for an end-of-year breakfast:

The only young woman in the picture (third from the right) is our teacher.

We sat in the patio (courtyard) of a popular bar in the village under a vine. Breakfast in Andalucia is half a toasted baghette with tomatoes finely chopped up and olive oil and salt. Very nice. I also had orange juice and my coffee.

The lady stood behind me is Celia, my neigbour at the back of my house. 

My son and his wife and son are in Spain at the moment and staying with my sister in Marbella (she has a pool). 

Tomorrow (Friday) I will drive down to join them for 5 days. It's a 3 and a half hour drive and then family fun, so I don't know if I can do many blog visits. 

But I do have several funnies lined up for you at the end here.

That's it for now. Bye for now.

Have a lovely weekend,

Lisca

These funnies are all 'Lost in Translation':