A Postcard A Day - Friday 18 October 2024 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely girls, 

How are you all? Have you had much to smile about this week? Of course you have! I have too.

My smiles are mostly cat-shaped...

But first let me show you a postcard that I received recently

No prizes for guessing it comes from Finland. It is a fun travel poster from the series 'Come To Finland'. It was sent to me by Marita who was looking forward to the christening of her 5th grandchild.

The stamp is gorgeous (as are most Finnish stamps):

"Fireworks bursting in the sky were chosen as the subject of the international no-value indicator stamp,” says illustrator Nina Kuuwho designed the stamps.

Those are not my only smiles for this week. As you can imagine my little kitty called Frankie is giving me plenty of smiles:

Here is my friend Kim with Frankie:

My friend Janet visited yesterday and brought a lovely little 'bed' and Frankie immediately loved it and has used it ever since:

That's enough of kitty. The other thing that made me smile this week was seeing this poster:

It means that next weekend we have a tapas and cocktail festival in our  village. The idea is that you visit all of the participating bars over the weekend and  rate their  tapas and cocktails on a form that you're given. The bar with the most votes wins. It does mean that they will all try to outdo each other so it should be a good weekend to go out. I will let you know (with photos) how I get on.

That is all from me today. I will go and link up with Annie at A Stitch In Time and I will see you all there!

Have a lovely weekend,

Hugs,

Lisca

Here are some funnies for you to smile about:

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 15 October 2024 - T for kittens and more kittens and a cake

 Hello lovely ladies, How are you all? I'm feeling a bit better after having spent a week still coughing and spluttering in the aftermath of a nasty flu. I'm still not right but I'm just ignoring that and carrying on regardless. (I'm still coughing)

Let me show you my postcard for today:

It comes to me from Finland. The title of the photo is: Cleaning fish, Suursaari 1930s.

I had to google Suursari as I had never heard of it. 

Suursaari is the Finnish name for the island of Gogland, (or Hogland in Swedish). Wikipedia writes:

Gogland is an island in the Gulf of Finland in the eastern Baltic Sea, about 180 km west from Saint Petersburg and 35 km from the coast of Finland (near Kotka). Hogland has an area of approximately 21 km² (8.1 sq mi); its highest point is 173 m (568 ft). It belongs to Russia's Kingiseppsky District in the Leningrad Oblast.

I tried to draw an arrow indicating where the island is and it took me half an hour! (I'm not that computer savvy), but you get the gist.

Wikipedia also writes:

Gogland's tourist industry was growing in importance, with most tourists coming from St. Petersburg, and some from Finland. In 2006, however, Russian authorities declared Gogland a "border area", which means that foreign nationals are not allowed to travel to the island without special permits. This limits tourism from abroad to small groups, admitted one at a time, and adds extensive bureaucracy to applications for permission to visit the island.

The stamp is really nice:

Designed by Illustrator Emmi-Riikka Vartiainen. The stamp is one of a set of two.

The stamps feature two goddesses mentioned in Kalevala poems, among other works. On the shape-cut stamps, Päivätär and Kuutar spin gold and silver thread from the rays of the sun and moon, from which gold and silver clothes are woven.

Its companion looks like this:

So what is happening here in Spain? I have not been that active but I continue to do archery, which I started two weeks ago. Here I am having a go:

I really like it.

Over the weekend I had two 'gatherings'. One of them on Sunday afternoon was a social for the Intercambio group. One of the ladies hosted a BBQ at her house. The weather was lovely and I was asked to make dessert. I made a cherry yoghurt cake:

It turned out well, but it could have been a bit sweeter, I thought. Oh well, next time...

Since Thursday I have a kitten! I'm calling her Frankie as she has blue eyes (Frank Sinatra was called Ole Blue Eyes):

She's into everything and at the moment she is on my legs behind the laptop. (So I can't see her but she is clawing at my jeans)

 

Today is T for Tuesday hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard so I need a drink. The other day someone gave me an aubergine (egg plant in America). They are nice in ratatouille but  I get one given to me often as everyone grows them. So this time I air fried them in slices and then drizzled Miel de Caña (it's like honey) over it. Yummy!

My glass is visible, but still empty. So this time it's a drink reference in stead of a drink.

Oh here is some coffee:

Thats it from me today. 

Happy T-Day!

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 11 October 2024 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely ladies, 

It's Friday already! That week has tripped by very fast! I have been poorly, but I'm better now. Still got a bit of a cough, but I'm up and about. Things are getting back to normal.

Let me show you my postcard for today:

It comes to me from Russia. It was sent to me by Nastya, who writes that she thought this lady could be me, as I love reading. Well, I am grey haired, and wear glasses, and I would sit by the window. But I don't have such a lush sea view, my  outlook is a bit more mountainy and arrid.

The painting is by Marina Molodchaya, and she calls it: Grandma.

The stamps are beautiful:

The stamp on the right dates from 1994, and it features a snuff box from 1752 and was issued for the 250th anniversary of the Imperial Porcelain Factory

The other two stamps are from the series Novgorod Kremlin. This features the Kukui and Knyazhaya Towers.

And this one is the St Sofia Cathedral

So what has been happening here? Well, apart from me being ill, I have two new things to mention:

This is Frankie. She is my new kitten. She arrived this afternoon and we are getting to know each other. Frankie got her name from the colour of her eyes. The blue reminded me of old Blue Eyes, (Frank Sinatra)

She is very gentle, a proper little lady.

The other novelty is that I have started archery. I started last Friday and I did enjoy it although I was coming down with the flu. Unfortunately I've not got any photos. I'll try and get some this week.

I'm going to visit Annie to share my smiles, so I might see you A Stitch In Time. In the meantime I will add some funnies at the end.

  

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 8 October 2024 - T for snail houses and kittens

 Hello lovely peeps,

I'm home now. I travelled home on Thursday because of a much coveted hairdresser appointment that Friday. My hairdresser is very popular and to get another appointment (should I have missed this one) within the month is impossible. 

I started sniffling on Wednesday, and by Thursday I had a full-blown cold, so I had to travel with a mask on. I felt even worse on Friday, but managed to stagger to the hairdresser and then quickly do some much needed grocery shopping. I've been in bed ever since...

But let me show you a fascinating postcard:

I love it! It's a bit steampunky in an organic sort of way. 

It is called 'Snail-housekeeper' by Kseniya Naumchik. (To see more of her art look here)

It was sent to me from Voronezh, south-west Russia. She posted it in September and writes that they are enjoying an Indian summer with temperatures at 29 degrees C.

I have also learned (from the news) that the province of Voronezh has become a warzone a few days ago. 

The stamps are lovely:

The gentleman on the left is Alexander Ostrovsky. 

Wikipedia writes this:

Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was a Russian playwright, generally considered the greatest representative of the Russian realistic period. The author of 47 original plays, Ostrovsky "almost single-handedly created a Russian national repertoire." Wikipedia

Born: April 12, 1823, Moscow, Russia

Died: June 14, 1886 (age 63 years), Shchelykovo, Russia

The stamp on the right is beautiful:

It features a Fedoskino miniature lacquer painting called Ivan da Marya (1989) by Yu.V. Dotsenko. 

Wikipedia writes:

Russia Post issued a set of 4 stamps on the Fedoskinskaya lacquer miniature on 17th March 2021. Fedoskino miniature lacquer painting is folk artistic craft, a kind of traditional Russian miniature lacquer painting with oil paints on papier-mâché that took shape at the end of the 18th century in village of Fedoskino located near Moscow.

The postal stamps provide images of boxes from the collection of the Moscow Regional Museum of Folk Art Crafts:  Ruslan and Lyudmila (1971) by M.S. Chizhov; The Firebird (1959) by S.V. Monashov; and Tea Party (1946) by V.I. Lavrov;

I haven't got much to say about my week as I've been ill. But I can tell you that I'm going to have a kitten! It's still quite young and I'm in no fit state to have kittens, so she is living next door with my friend Dian until I'm well enough:

She is all white with blue eyes. Before I knew she was female, I was calling it 'Frankie' in my mind (as in Frank Sinatra, Ol' Blue Eyes). But now I know she is female, I'll have to have a re-think, or leave it as Frankie.

Today is Elizabeth and Bluebeard's T-Party and I need a drink reference. As I've not been anywhere I will share these:

I hope that brought a smile to your face.

Happy T-Day all!

Keep smiling!

Lisca