A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 1 July 2025 - T for colourful stamps, lunch with friends and a loving cat

 Hello lovely peeps,

It's Tuesday again! And I'd like to show you a postcard from Germany:

It comes from Cottbus, which you can see below on the map. 

It's south-east of Berlin, near the Polish border.

The card has some info on it in German and I took a screen shot of the Google translation:

It was sent to me by Jana, who is as christian like me and likes to read, and also plays the harp.

The stamps are very colourful.

The three on the left are the paper figures with a postal theme. The peacock at the top has envelopes in his  feathers. The fish in the middle has a fin in the shape of a postal stamp. And the bottom one is the message in a bottle.

The large stamp features 100 year German Tanzsportverband, which means dance sport association.

As far as I know, dance sport is competitive ballroom dancing. I've not been able to completely understand what they mean by dance sport. The couple on the stamp seem to be doing the Charlston.

What else can I tell you.

My little spiderplant, which was a tiny cutting, is now flowering for the first time and the tiny flowers are gorgeous:

Can you see the little white flowers?

Today Elizabeth and Bluebeard are hosting the Tea-Party and for that I need to show you a drink:

On Sunday after church my friends organized a bring-and-share lunch. The drinks are visible at the far end of the table. I had made a rice dish and a cake (which was on a different table as it was for 'after').

We had a lovely time socializing. All of these people are my friends but for various reasons I don't see them all regularly.

I want to show you a couple of photos of Ronnie:

I photographed him cuddling on my lap. I used the selfie mode on my phone and after a few tries, I got a decent one.

I have a tray of cat toys, but before I got the chance to choose a toy to play with, Ronnie plonked himself on the tray, on top of the toys!

At the moment he is lying on top of the table, seemingly sleeping.

But when I got close, he opened one eye...

That's it folks. I hope it's not as hot over where you are as it is very hot here. 

Happy T-Day,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 27 June 2025 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely peeps,

How are you all? Have you had something to make you smile this week? I have a postcard to show you that made me smile. It arrived yesterday:

It's entitled Briefkasten Schlange which means literally mailbox snake. I would say mailbox queue. It's a photo from 1926, nearly 100 years ago!

It was sent to me by Isabelle from Switzerland. She wrote that she was going to a gymnastics fest in Lausanne where gymnastic clubs from all over Switzerland come together to celebrate and compete agains each other. It is a once-every-six-years event.

I looked it up on the Internet:

From June 12 to 22, 2025, Lausanne will pulsate with the rhythm of gymnastics demonstrations and competitions, all free and open to the public. The 77th Swiss Federal Gymnastics Festival will showcase all facets of our sports. A unique opportunity for Swiss gymnasts and the public to celebrate the diversity of gymnastics together in a festive setting, in a spirit of respect and inclusion.

The stamp is lovely:

Isabelle mentions that the stamp features her favorite mountain, the Rigi.

The Rigi is a mountain massif of the Alps, located in Central Switzerland. The whole massif is almost entirely surrounded by the water of three different bodies of water: Lake Lucerne, Lake Zug and Lake Lauerz. Wikipedia

I have traveled through Switzerland many times by car and by train and it is beautiful. But to be honest, I have never stopped or stayed there. (It's expensive).

Now here in Spain life is not so expensive and I am enjoying life very much.

On Monday night we had a community night walk (start 21:15) through the village around all the wells/water sources. They call it the night of San Juan. 

Wikipedia writes: The Night of San Juan, celebrated in Andalusia, Spain, on June 23rd, is a magical and vibrant midsummer's eve festival. It blends ancient pagan rituals with Catholic traditions, with a focus on fire and water, symbolizing purification and renewal.

The photo was taken during the first part of the walk when it was still light. It doesn't get really dark until after 10 pm.

We didn't do the bonfire thing, as far as I know. It was more than 6 km, going up and down several hills and I was tired. I went straight home after the walk as the last bit of the walk comes past my house, so perhaps they did have a bonfire, but I didn't attend. (I did hear fireworks bang)

On Sunday I had a busy morning as our village was organizing an archery competition for the clubs in the area.

Here (above photo) are the ladies from my club.

Rebecca and Sylvia, two ladies from my group. I didn't participate as I had several other things on that Sunday.

The sports facilities in our village are very good. This complex has, apart from the soccer pitch, where we were doing the archery, there is also a swimming pool, tennis courts and padel courts:

That was early Sunday morning. I stayed an hour to watch and then I drove to Baza to have breakfast in this restaurant (round the corner from the church):

I had traditional Andalusian breakfast (toast with olive oil and tomatoes), an orange juice that they squeeze on the spot, and a coffee with ice:

The ice gets served separate, so I put sugar in my coffee and after stirring, I pour it in the glass with the ice cubes. A type of ice coffee.

After church there was a bring-and-share lunch with my prayer group in our village, but I'll leave that for another day.

So lots of smiles for me. Please join me at Annie's at A Stitch In Time .

I will put some funnies at the end.

Have a lovely weekend,

Lisca 

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 24 June 2025 - T for cathedral, heat and bunny rabbits

 Hello lovely girls, How are you all? 

Here we are again meeting at the T-party hosted by Bluebeard and Elizabeth. I have drinks to share with you but first I'd like to share my postcard. It comes from Germany:

It shows the old town hall in Erkelenz, which is a town in the Rhineland in western Germany (near the Dutch border). It is a medium-sized town (over 44,000 inhabitants)

In Wikipedia I found this info: Despite the town having more than 1,000 years of history and tradition, in 2006 the eastern part of the borough was cleared to make way for the Garzweiler II brown coal pit operated by RWE Power. This is planned to be in operation until 2045. Over five thousand people from ten villages have had to be resettled as a result. (Read more about this here)

I love that rabbit stamp. It's from a series of Haustiere (domestic animals, pets). I couldn't find a photo of the whole series but here is another one:

And there's a beautiful dog too:

I've been quite busy. Friday I went to Granada to visit my new friend Sally, whom I met during my senior holiday earlier this year. She lives right in the old center of town on the 5th floor (with beautiful views over the city). I mentioned that I had never visited the cathedral, so that is where we went.

It's huge. Wikipedia writes:  The Metropolitan Cathedral-Basilica of the Incarnation, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Granada, Spain. The cathedral is the seat of the Archdiocese of Granada. Like many other cathedrals in Andalusia, it was built on top of the city's main mosque after the reconquest of Granada.

Granada's cathedral has a rectangular base due to its five naves that completely cover the cross. All of the five naves are staggered in height, the central one being the largest. At the foot of the cathedral there are two towers. The left one, called the tower of San Miguel, acts as a buttress which replaced the planned tower on that side.

I absolutely loved the organs. I thought there were 4 organs:

There are two, as you can see. When I walked to the other side, it seemed there were two more but it is part of the same organ, only the back side:

From the website Granada Cristiana I found this: It should be noted that the acoustics of the church act as a magnificent sounding board for the instruments and, moreover, it is not possible to use them simultaneously in repertoire works for double organ due to their different elements of harmonisation, tuning, timbre and style.

Nevertheless, for the celebration of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception in 1894, given that the organs were in the same tuning, the mass was celebrated with the orchestra accompanied by the 2 organs.

Below is my friend Sally 

There are some enormous doors:

Below is a carriage/float (I don't know what these things are called) used in a procession (I think the previous day):

Another large door. I posed in front of it just to show you the size of it!

One last photo before you get fed up:

Now, I mustn't forget to show you my drink.

Sally and I had lunch in a restaurant called La Cueva:

We sat at the back, on the right up the steps:

Our first course was aubergines (egg plant) with molasses:

You can see a glass of beer there on the table (It was 0/0% as I was driving).

One more photo before I finish:

Oh, and did I mention it was hot?

41 Degrees C is near 106 degrees F!

That's it lovely ladies,

I'm off!

Happy T-Day to all,

Lisca