A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 14 August 2018

Hello lovely people. 

Here we are again! Ready for the T-Party! Why don't you join us with a blogpost with a beverage in it. We meet at Bluebeard and Elizabeth's Altered Book Lover. 

Before I share my drink I want to show you a beautiful postcard I received this week:

It was sent to my by Susanne Dellefant in München, Germany. She writes that she is an artist and that the painting on the card is one of her paintings called "Tänzerin" (dancer). I have found her website if you'd like to see more of her work. I think this painting is wonderful. She reminds me of a flamenco dancer at the fair. 

http://hwww.susanna-dellefant.de/english/gallery/ttps://

The next thing I want to show you is a poster of a fascinating project to promote our area. We live in a very interesting 'Badlands'. Someone asked me the other day what that was.... my understanding is that Badlands are a type of dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded by wind and water. They are characterized by steep slopes and minimal vegetation. Wikipedia says: They are often difficult to navigate by foot. Badlands often have a spectacular color display that alternates from dark black/blue coal stria to bright clays to red scoria.

Here is a short video where you can see how beautiful it is.

It's been a busy week here in our village. During the whole week it was Feria, the fair. It is a week long fun fair, parties and activities and contests. Our photo club held an exhibition in the little park in the centre.

Last week we were in the Extremadura part of Spain, in a medieval town called Plasencia. I have already shown you photos of the wall. Today I'll show you a few other things:

An interesting building (above)

I love beautiful doors. Inside one of these doors we saw this:

One of the streets we walked through (It was more than 40 degrees C!)

Our evening meal was taken at the hotel and here you can see the first course: gazpacho, the classical Spanish cold soup. Very refreshing. My drink (red wine) is also in the picture, qualifying it for the T-Party. The little bits on the side are raw onion, bell pepper and chopped tomatoes. You are meant to sprinkle them over your soup if so desired.

I hope you enjoyed the photos (and the video if you had a chance to watch it),
Happy T-Day,
Hugs,
Lisca

PS If the link didn't work, here is the web address:
https://www.facebook.com/geoparquecuaternario/videos/611078542602949/

A Postcard A Day - Friday 10 August 2018 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely friends,

It's Friday already.This week has flown by. 

I hadn't received many cards over the last few weeks and all of a sudden yesterday, I got 11! The postoffice must have saved them up....

 Here is another Inge Löök creation for my collection. I think the old dears are playing witches. It was sent to me by a Dutch lady who lives in Germany. She was able to write to me in Dutch, which was nice.
The stamps are beautiful. 

I managed to find some info on the Corvey abbey on Wikipedia: The Imperial Abbey of Corvey or Princely Abbey of Corvey (German: Stift Corvey or Fürstabtei Corvey) was a Benedictine abbey on the River Weser, 2 km northeast of Höxter, now in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was one of the Imperial abbeys of the Holy Roman Empire from the late Middle Ages until 1792 when the abbey was dissolved and Corvey converted into a prince-bishopric. It was in turn secularized in 1803 and absorbed into the newly created Principality of Nassau-Orange-Fulda. In 2014, the former abbey was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

What have I been doing this week? What were my smiles? I'm going to join Annie at A Stitch In Time for her Friday Smiles.

My first smile is that it's Feria week in our village. Each town and village has a week long Feria. Ours is this week:

There are activities every day and performances at night. We don't go out every night, but we will go out tonight and tomorrow night to see the folk dancing.

Hubby complained that he could not find anything to make holes in his new belts. He had these belts but couldn't use them. So out comes my Cropadile! Five minutes later: job done and hubby smiling from ear to ear!

The other thing I have been doing is making cards. Two cards. A first anniversary card for my sister and B-I-L, and a birthday card for my son who will be 42 at the end of the month. (Yes, he was born in the hot summer of 1976).

I can't show you any of the cards until after the event, but I can show you this heart die.

I spent a lot of time getting that one absolutely right and then carefully pushing out all the 'bits' with a pin. I bought the die at a Chinese poundshop for one Euro, but it works well.

Another happy moment is that our worship group has been given an overhead projector. But nobody could get it going. All the software we could get had monthly subscriptions to pay for the English and american performance and copyright. So hubby has been busy sorting that out and is now using Powerpoint. Not ideal, but until we find something better and free, it will have to do. But it works and we are very happy with it, so smiles all over.

 Last weekend we went to the Extremadura region of Spain, to a place called Plasencia. We met up with one of our boys and his family on the way from the Algarve to the ferry in the north.
I blogged about the visit on Tuesday and today I will show you some more photos. 
It was very hot. Above 40 degrees centigrade, very hot!

 We were in the main square of the town, and I spotted these men on the roof of a building. Here you can see one of them. The other is an automaton seemingly ringing the bell. I thought it was a real man. We had to laugh about that! (In close up it is clearly visible, but with the naked eye not so obvious)

+

 I'm always on the look out for street art and murals. This is a sculpture of someone with his head in the sand.

 Plasencia is a walled town on the top of a hill. To get to the old town was quite a climb. Seeing the escalators was one of our biggest smiles that day. Fantastic!

 This was the half-way point. I think there were 4 escalators in total.

The car park had elevators and a walkway to get to the bottom of the escalators. The elevator shafts were painted with art. 

 Both with a 'bird' theme.

 Now for some funnies. I found this one the other day and it had me smiling:

The following funnies I got from Denthe's blogspot

That's it from me. Have a lovely weekend all,
Blessings,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 7 August 2018 - T for Tuesday cats, castles and a VW bus

Hello lovely peeps, How are you'all this Tuesday? It's time for Elizabeth and Bluebeard's T-Party called T for Tuesday. Come and join us, all you need is a beverage. My beverage is coming further down, but first let me show you my postcards. 

The first one goes to a girl in Russia who has never seen the ocean. She asked for cards which show the sea or ocean. So I found this surfer dude with his Volkswagen on the beach. She asked for cards in an envelope so she could lift the stamps. As I was using an envelope, I thought I'd add a few things until I reached the max weight. I added empty sugar bags, teabag wrappers and bus tickets. I also found this cat sentiment bookmark.  She loves cats so I'm sure that will be a hit. (Bluebeard might recognise some of them)

 The next one is a card I received from Russia. I put in my profile that I like vintage travel posters, and this is what I got. Lovely. It's curious that the poster is English and gets sent from Russia. Butlin's holiday camp in Skegness is still going strong!

This weekend we went to meet with one of our sons and his family as they were journeying back from their holiday destination in southern Portugal to the ferry in northern Spain. We arranged to meet halfway in a place called Plasencia. It meant a five and a half hour car journey for each of us.

We'd booked into the same hotel and later we phoned the hotel and asked them if we could come a day earlier as well. So we could do some sight seeing before the gang arrived. 

Plasencia is a medieval walled town built on a hill. Of course the car park is at the bottom of the hill. Fortunately they have made escalators all the way to the old town.

When you get to the top of the last escalator, you are met with the name Plasencia on a little square.

We walked past the bronze man on his horse, through the city gates and walked along the inside walls:

 This is the outside. It is truly magnificent.

 At a certain point we could go in one of the towers and walk along the top of the wall. The view from up there is stunning.

 It was very hot: 44 degree C. (111.2 degrees F)

So occasionally we stopped for a drink and a cool down with airconditioning.

 This was an old bar in one of the side streets. Our drink is a Radler (ice cold lager with real lemon,). I was so hot and bothered that I am not going to show you my photo. In stead here is hubby pronouncing a toast to the T-ladies!

One last thing: Our cat brought us a present this morning:

 Here he is with a ballpoint to get an idea of size. Yes, it's a dead upsidedown scorpion. The funny thing is that our cat is hopeless with mice. He's not interested. But he seems to like catching/killing scorpions. (it's not the first time). These scorpions are not deadly (to humans) but the bite hurts a lot apparently. (and it actually might kill our cat...)

Yuck!

That's it from me today. 

Happy T-Day,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 3 August 2018 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely people,

How have you all been? I am fine and smiling from ear to ear. We're on a little mini holiday. One of our boys is holidaying in the Algarve with wife and three children. They drive back to the ferry through Spain and we have arranged to meet half way. It's a place called Plasencia. It's a day's drive from where they are and a day's drive from where we are. We have decided to go one day before them so here we are in a little hotel room with dodgy wifi...

We saw the famous Alcantara bridge, a Roman bridge near the border. I have lovely photos but I stll haven't figured out how  to retrieve my photos on my iPad and insert the image in Blogger, so you'll have to wait until I get back home to my desktop.

Here are some postcards:

This black and white card is supposed to be funny, but to be honest, I don't see what is so funny. Perhaps horses don't sit like that (I have no idea about horses). Anyway, this is a card I sent out this week to someone who likes black and white cards.

This is a stamp I have used for all my cards this week. I bought a whole sheet of these. 

It's unusual in that the white bit representing the bridge is actually cut out.

The card with the books I received this week from the USA. The sender (I forgot her name) is a lover of books and absolutely loves reading books. She told me what she was reading at the moment. 

I had a really nice surprise this week. A friend from work is holidaying in Andalucia at the moment with her husband. She contacted me the other night saying she had only just realized I lived near Granada. The were staying in Granada, could we arrange to meet. So they kindly got on the bus the next day, arrived at 3 pm, but they had to get the 6pm bus back. so it really a a flying visit.

We had so much fun catching up! (and oh the joys of a mature double chin!)

I'd better get some funnie for you. As I am not at home I have no way of checking (other than reading through all my blogs) if I have shown you these before. so apologies if I have repeated myelf.

That was my Friday contribution to Annie's Friday Smiles. Have a great weekend all,
and keep smiling!
Lisca

Second on the second - A blogpost from 2014 - 2 August 2018

Hello peeps,

I'm travelling at the moment (i.e. we're driving all day) to meet DS, DinL and three grandchildren. We've booked a hotel near the Portughese border. I doubt whether I will have an opportunity to comment tonight, so I apologise in advance...

Elizabeth and Bluebeard from Altered Book Lover invite us to post an old blog post for the second time on the second of the month.

As to day is the 2nd of August, here is my contribution. It is a blogpost from July 2014 about St Ives, Cornwall.

St Ives means sea, sand and sunshine as it has  some of England's most beautiful beaches. It is a populare holiday spot and these days houses the famous Tate modern. But in 1954 there were no tourists, where the Tate is now, was then the gas works. The beaches were empty and I had the time of my life!

Here goes:

St Ives Scrapbook page

In 1954 I was sent away to stay with a family friend I called aunty Grace as my mother was very ill after the birth of my younger sister. Aunty Grace lived in Cornwall England in a fishing village called St Ives. She lived within walking distance of one of the most beautiful beaches in England. I stayed with her and her family a whole summer and loved it! I learnt to speak English very quickly (as small children do) and I basked in the love of aunty Grace and her family. She had always wanted a girl (and had only sons) and I was made a fuss of, showed off and pampered. Aunty Grace had a lovely voice and was always singing. I have such dear memories of that summer and it has shaped me into the person I now am. Aunty Grace has long since passed away but her family members still consider me a part of the family.

Photos: top left: Me and David Buckingham, Grace’s son. Top right:  Me and Grace Buckingham at the gate of Sylvania, Ayr Terrace, St Ives.

I haven’t been able to do any scrapbooking for a few months as my scraproom has been turned into a guest room for visitors and then we’ve been away visiting family as well.

I love doing the challenges from CSI Color, stories and inspiration, especially when they give you a sketch to work from.

I’m back for Case file 131 and this is my solution.

The colours are there. The orange is in the bird and the blue is a tiny dot on the head of the butterfly.

The evidence is found in the wet medium (ink spray), wood grain, string, animal accents (butterfly and bird), polka dots (the gesso dots) and the brads.

The testimony was inspired by a Sunday Stealing prompt: Earliest childhood summer memory.

The journaling at the bottom of the page reads: Staying for three months in St Ives with aunty Grace.

That's it from me for today.

God bless and .......... keep scrapping!

Lisca