A Postcard A Day - Friday 12 April 2024 - Friday Smiles

 Hello my lovelies,

I'm back home again after a week on the coast. My daughter and I have had a lovely relaxing time. 

Let me show you my postcard:

It shows Glastonbury Tor.

Overlooking the Isle of Avalon, Glastonbury and Somerset, this iconic hill has been a spiritual magnet for centuries.

Standing 521 feet above sea level, the famous Glastonbury Tor is capped by the massive tower- all that is left of the former St. Michael’s Church.

Built in the 14th century and restored in 1804, this is a three-storeyed parapeted tower that formed the west end of the church (the outline of the nave gable can be clearly seen on the east wall). The tower has many features of architectural interest including representations of St. Michael and St. Bridget and a carved figure of a priest. 

The tower is unroofed and empty, but recent excavations of the hill have laid bare traces of a former Norman Church, of a mediaeval priest’s house and a Saxon Church. A round headed Saxon cross was found as evidence of a hill fort of Arthurian times. Scattered finds from the Tor suggest that man may have even been making use of the hill from remote prehistoric times.

The stamps are amazing:

On the right is a stamp celebrating 75 years of the arrival of the Windrush immigrants. 

A special collection of stamps has been issued to mark the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean to the UK on the Empire Windrush.

Eight Royal Mail stamps featuring original artworks by Black British artists were commissioned to celebrate the occasion, which will be revealed at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton on Thursday.

 The ship arrived at the Port of Tilbury, in Essex, on 21 June 1948, and its passengers disembarked a day later.

It carried 492 West Indian migrants, many of whom came to the UK, alongside people from other parts of the Commonwealth, to help in Britain’s postwar economic recovery. Many of those who came to the UK had served in the British armed forces in the second world war.

The middle and left hand stamp are part of a series of eight stamps:

 Eight stamps depict scenes of celebration by service personnel and civilians when news of the conflict’s end was announced, and the subsequent return of personnel from overseas and children who were evacuated

Originally shot in black and white, all eight images have been brought to life in colour for the first time by colourist, Royston Leonard

Now a few photos of my holiday:

The hotel was basic but very comfortable. We had a litle balcony with table and chairs, where we would sit in the evenings.

On Sunday we went to a local Anglican church:

Lovely service. We both enjoyed it. 

Then in the afternoon we met up with Kate and her husband Chris, who live in the area.

We walked along the boulevard

We saw beautiful exotic plants and trees.

and she took us to a beautiful lagoon.

Of course we had to pose together for this blog page.

My daughter likes ice cream very much and often ordered a whole plate of it!

Today is Friday smiles and you can see I have had a lot to smile about. I'm going to share with Annie at A Stitch In Time. Of course I will post some funnies at the end as per usual.

Have a lovely weekend all of you.

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 9 April 2024 - T for vacacion

 Hello lovely peeps,

I'm sitting in a hotel room on the east coast of Spain. I'm having a little holiday with my daughter in a coastal village called Garrucha. I'll show you some photos but first, here is my postcard for today:

Mazamet is nestled at the edge of the Montagne Noire (Black Mountains) with its vast forests. It’s in the heart of the regional natural park of Haute-Languedoc. Located between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, it’s just 90 minutes from the beaches and around 45 minutes from Carcassonne, the fabulous medieval walled city that’s one of the wonders of France.

Despite being one in one of the sunniest areas of France, this is an area of lush green valleys and verdant vineyards. Here you’ll enjoy lazy lunches in the sun, vibrant local markets where you’ll be able to buy the local cheese, Roquefort; plus lots of activities and historic, cultural visits.

The stamp is beautiful:

And we all know who Napoleon is. 

On May 5, 1821, Napoléon Bonaparte died aged 51, imprisoned on the isolated British outpost of St Helena in the south Atlantic. The diminutive Corsican who went from obscure French artillery officer to the Emperor dominating continental Europe is still a subject of fierce contention 200 years after his death. Was he a visionary genius or brutal tyrant – or indeed a combination of the two?

A commemorative stamp of French Emperor Napoléon I at the French national printing house of postage stamps in Boulazac, France, on March 31, 2021. 

Today I'm joining Elizabeth and Bluebeard for the T-Party. Above is my drink and there might be more, who knows.

Just before I left on my holidays, my friend Kim and I had our hair cut 

and then went out for a drink:

The bar was one that we have been before, and it is full of herbs being dried.

The owner is the wife of the local plumber.

Very nice people.

Now we (my daughter and I) are on the coast:

Crystal clear water.

I knew there would be another drink somewhere.

This tree was enormous!

There was a plaque saying it was an Australian fig tree. It didn't look anything like our fig trees which have large leaves.

I will call it a day. More photos of my holiday on Friday.

Happy T-Day all!

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 5 April 2024 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely peeps,

At the moment I am on holiday with my daughter Tracey on the Costa Almería. We are staying in a hotel in Garrucha. So lots to smile about. But more of that later. Let me show you my postcard:

Annie will immediately recognise it! If I'm not mistaken, she doesn't live from from there. 

The church bottom left is Shrewsbury Abbey, the building on the right is the town hall and the lovely old house top left is Rowley House.

Read more about this house here.

On the card, the building on the right is called the Town Hall, but that same building on the Internet is called  the Market Hall. I'm sure Annie will put me out of my misery:

Here seen from the other side.

Shrewsbury Abbey: 

There has been a place of worship on this site since Anglo-Saxon times. The Abbey was founded as a Benedictine Monastery by Roger de Montgomery in 1083 on the site of an existing Saxon church. After the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of King Henry VIII the part of the Abbey building which survived continued as a Parish Church – as it is to this day.

When Shropshire author Ellis Peters (whose real name was Edith Pargeter) wrote the historic murder mysteries The Cadfael Chronicles (later turned into the TV series Cadfael) she was inspired by medieval Shrewsbury and made Shrewsbury Abbey the home of her fictional hero, the Benedictine monk Brother Cadfael.

The stamp is a British stamp with Queen Elizabeth II on it:

I am writing this in a hotel in the Almería province in southern Spain. After I collected my daughter at the airport, we went to Almería capital to walk along the boulevard and have (a late) breakfast in the sun. I took this picture of her by the 'Indalo', the symbol of Almería:

We then drove north along the coast to Garrucha (about an hour's drive), which is where we will spend 5 nights.

I'll leave it here. Of course there will be some funnies at the end as this is Friday Smiles.

Have a lovely weekend, and be sure to read about more smiles at Annie's .

Keep smiling,

Lisca

 

A Postcard A Day and Second on the 2nd - Tuesday 2 April 2024 - T for a drink without a postcad

 Hello lovely peeps, today I'm doing two in one. The first part is the drink image for Elizabeth and Bluebeard's T-Party and the second part is Second on the 2nd.

This week I had my lodger to dinner and I made a Thai curry:

My drink was a pink beer. It had a sort of cherry flavour. Very nice. The Thai curry probably had too much chicken in it but it tasted very good.

The second part is a blogpost I did exactly 10 years ago on the 1st of April 2014. I was new to blogging then and I answered ten 'newbie questions':

Ten questions to a newbie blogger

My blog friend Lizzy Hill is encouraging people to look at some new blogs. And mine is among them! Thank you Lizzy! (http://lizzyhill12.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/a-liebster-award-passing-it-on.html)

So if you are here via Lizzy's blog, you are very welcome. Have a look at some previous posts too.

She asked me to answer 10 questions, so here they are:

 
1.    What is your favorite book/TV show or movie?

I love reading. The book I would take with me on my ‘desert island’ would undoubtedly be the Bible. As a Christian I couldn’t  imagine life without it. As well as the gospel it has stories, and poetry and wise words. 

But I love my Kindle (electronic book) and read loads of fiction too. I like books for young adults and devoured ‘The Hunger Games’! I have recently read (and enjoyed) Richard Phillips The Rho Agenda trilogy. We don't watch tv at all but occasionally we'll watch a DVD. When we go back to the UK (once a year) we treat ourselves to a few cinema visits. That's a real treat for us as here in Spain all films are dubbed and our Spanish isn't good enough to enjoy a film. My all time fav film was Avatar, which we saw in 3D. Awesome!

2-Where would you travel to if you had an open end budget?

I’d love to go to a country with volcanic phenomena like geysers and lava flows etc. Iceland or Yoshemite Park or even Hawai!

3. What was your favorite thing to do as a child?

I was, and still am an avid reader (here is a layout I made about my old childhood book I found in a box). I also loved my paper cut out dolls and between my sister and I we had more than 100! We would put them against the piano in a row and dress them up and invent stories about them.

4. Most hated housework job? 

Most definitely the vacuum cleaning. I just hate the noise and when we lived in the UK (they have wall to wall carpets in the UK) my husband did the hoovering. (Yes, I know, he’s a treasure!) We now have tiles everywhere, so I just sweep and mop, no problem.

5. Share a photo from your life now - doesn't have to be of you.

This is a lake nearby. It's called Negratin and it's a reservoir really, but the water is such a deep turquoise colour! Beautiful! I love it!  There is one small beach which the locals use otherwise there are no tourists and I wanted to keep this place a secret.... I guess the secret is out now!

6. Why do you scrap?

I remember the time (and I’m only in my early 60s) when we spent hours looking through photo albums, the older the better. That is how we learnt as children about our family history and it was a prompt for grandparents to talk about their own  youth and the war and for us children to ask questions that would otherwise have never occurred. Children nowadays miss that sort of information as all our photos are on the computer or on a mobile phone. I hope I will give pleasure to whoever looks through my albums at some future time. 

7. Favourite pet? 

We’ve never had pets, not even as children. But a few years ago we stayed with friends when our house was sold and we hadn’t moved on yet. We stayed with them for a few months and they had the most gorgeous Labrador dogs. We fell in love with them and if I ever have a pet it would have to be a Labrador dog.

8. What was your dream job as a kid? 

I wanted to be a librarian. When I was a teenager I did work experience in the city archive and found it fascinating. But as I grew up I was discouraged to do these ‘dull’ jobs. I regret that now. I’m too old to retrain but I would have made a good librarian or archivist.

9. Who would you like to meet in real life? 

I’m inclined to say Jesus, but I believe I will meet him face to face when I die.  I think blogging is a great way to make friends and it would be my wish to meet one of my blogging friends (from the other side of the world even) in person one day. So you are all very welcome to come and see me (us).

10. What´s on your bucket list? 

Mmm, we are actually living our dream at the moment. I got breast cancer in 2011, and as soon as my treatment finished we moved to a sunny country, which had been our dream. We have lived here in Andalucia, Spain ever since. We had a cave house as a holiday home out in the ‘sticks’ far from any village. Not very practical now we are getting older, so we bought another property in a small nearby town, which we are renovating. I'm loving my life. (Being retired helps of course...)

(Sunset from our front door)

I hope you enjoyed having a peek into my life. Thanks for stopping by.

God bless and.... keep scrapping!

Lisca