A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 11 August 2026 - T for a brief encounter and a little prince and fun at the fair

 Hello lovely peeps,

Here I am again with a postcard I received this week and of course I have a drink to join Bluebeard and Elizabeth's T-Party. Let's start with the postcard:

It's an image from the film Brief Encounter. In the photo Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) leans out of the train window and shakes Dr Alec Harvey's (Trevor Howard) hand. 

It was sent to me by Jackie who lives in Northern France. Jackie's sister-in-law runs the café at the station it was filmed at in the UK. The station is now a heritage centre. It s called the Carnforth Station Heritage Centre. 

Carnforth Heritage Visitor Centre is the famous setting for David Lean’s iconic 1945 film “Brief Encounter”. This once significant railway station is situated at the junction on the West Coast Main line with the lines to Barrow-in-Furness and to Skipton and Leeds. 

The station has been lovingly restored and is now an award-winning Heritage Centre and unique conference venue. 

The Heritage Centre tells the story of the making of the film and the people involved, including the Life and Times of David Lean, the film’s Director. 

As Jackie, who sent me the card, lives in France, there was a French postage stamp ion the card:

It features an image of Le Petit Prince.  Le Petit Prince is a children's book, written and illustrated in 1942 by military pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – c. 31 July 1944).

Le Monocle writes: He wrote Le Petit Prince while in exile on Long Island after being demobilised. In the story, a stranded pilot meets a prince from a neighbouring asteroid. After encountering six narrow-minded, egocentric characters, the young prince grows disillusioned with the meaning of life. It’s a wise fox who identifies the story’s moral: “L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux” or “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” The message is impossible to misunderstand: the most meaningful aspects of life – love, kindness and friendship – aren’t visible. It’s a predictable moral, perhaps, but the book’s success is anything but.

 Wikipedia writes: By November 2024, the book had been translated into 600 different languages and dialects worldwide. It became the second most translated work ever published, trailing only the Bible.

Have you read it? I read it as a child when learning French, but I can't really remember much about it. I do remember the illustrations and the shiny paper the book was printed on. 

Enough about the little prince. What has been happening here in southern Spain?

Well, our village has had the Feria, the yearly fiesta that lasts a week and attracts a lot of visitors.

I went on one of the first evenings with my friends (I'm in the middle). It's not very busy yet as it is early. None of us are night birds and neither of us likes the crowds, so this was perfect.

We had the traditional 'pinchos', marinated chicken pieces on a stick and then BBQ-ed.  Here are my drinks for Elizabeth and Bluebeard's T-Party.

On a different evening I went again with a different friend and we went for a baked potato. I had 'the works'!

My drink was a beer. We bought two beers each, but I only drank one and the other one I stuck in my bag and put in the fridge when I got home.

On Saturday evening I walked through the village and chanced upon the 'foam fest'. It was probably just finishing because normally the foam is knee deep.

What else have I done this week? Oh yes, I had my hair cut:

Tomorrow, the 12 August 2026, a total solar eclipse will cross Greenland, Iceland and Spain, with Spain becoming one of the best places in the world to witness this rare event.

As you can see by the above map, I will not be able to see it as I live in the south.

So that was all the excitement of the past week.

Take care, stay safe.

Happy T-Day,

Lisca