A Postcard A Day - Friday 29 October 2026 - Friday Smiles and Face Off (Short and sweet)

 Hello lovely peeps,

Here I am again with, as promised, the second postcard from New York:

My friend Kim and her hubby had been to New York recently to visit their son in Brooklyn. She brought me two beautiful black and white postcards. Thank you Kim.

This one has all the iconic places that even I would be able to sum up if asked about New York. My friends have seen all these places with their own eyes. They went up the Empire State Building, saw the Statue of Liberty from the ferry, visited Ground Zero, and walked Brooklyn Bridge. It was the trip of a life time.

Because the postcards were given to me in person, there are no stamps to show you today.

Not much time has passed since Tuesday (my previous blogpost) so I don't have much to tell you. I need a smile and a face. Well, that is easy:

My lovely cat Ronnie puts a smile on my face.

He has such a cute little face, even when he is asleep.

I have not many photos today, just a few I took at the local market (all from one stall apart from the olives):

Dried fruit and sugared fruit.

Pistachios, almonds and hazelnuts.

Olives and pickled chillies.

All sorts of nuts and also local honey.

Dried pasta, all sorts of nuts, even monkey nuts.

More nuts and snack mixes, but I have no idea what those round brown things are. (they are too small to be crackers).

More nuts.

Before I drive you all nuts, I will call it a day. But of course there will be some funnies at the end.

Have a wonderful Halloween weekend,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 27 Octiber 2026 - T for The Big Apple, Ronnie and some book reviews

 Hello lovely peeps,

Here I am with a beautiful postcard:

It was not sent in the post but given to me by my friends K & A who have just come back from a trip to New York. Lucky so-and-sos! 

I think it features Brooklyn Bridge.

Their son works there and he lives in Brooklyn. They had the time of their life as said son had taken time off to show his parents around. (mostly on foot as the son lives fairly central). My friends admitted that they had never really wanted to visit NY but now that they've been, they think it's amazing. They say the people were so nice and all the places they've seen were really impressive.

They gave me two postcards. The other one I will show on Friday.

What have I been up to here in Spain? Well, apart from my usual things, I have started my make-up group, where we learn how to make ourselves up. (sorry, no photos)

On Saturday I went out for a drink with my friends from Intercambio (our language conversation group):

Here in the province of Granada, we get a free tapa with every drink. Here is our first tapa:

Baked potatoes with aioli sauce. 

(There is a drink in the background: my friend's shandy)

Then on Sunday, after church, I met friends at a restaurant to have a drink (and a tapa):

The tapa in this case was meatballs. I'm having an alcohol free beer as I was driving.

There is a drink in the above photo and the photo below shows Ronnie drinking, so that qualifies me for the T-Party, hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard.

Here is a photo of Ronnie, my cat:

He is drinking from his new stainless steel drinking fountain. We had a plastic one before but I thought this one would be more hygienic and washable in the dishwasher. He likes it. Phew!

As nothing much has happened this week, so I  thought I'd review a few more books I read over the summer.

First of all: Fall of Giants - Ken Follett

Fall of Giants is a 2010 historical novel by Welsh author Ken Follett. It is the first part of the Century Trilogy which follows five interrelated families throughout the course of the 20th century. The first book covers notable events such as World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage. Wikipedia

I had this as an audio book and absolutely loved it. It's about five families during the run-up to the first world war. Some of them are involved in politics, so I learned about the political situation leading up to the war and also one of the protagonists is involved in women's suffrage, which I enjoyed reading about. 

It's one of those un-put-downable books as you want to know what happens to those families you have invested in.

Needless to say I immediately bought the sequel (More about that at a later date).

It's quite a tome, but I do like that.

 I gave it five stars (the maximum).

Next up: Adriana Trigiani's View from Lake Como:

Wikipedia writes: The story follows Giuseppina (Jess) Capodimonte Baratta, an Italian American divorcee from Lake Como, New Jersey, as she loses her uncle, inherits the family marble business, gets investigated by the FBI, unearths family secrets, and moves to Carrara, Italy. Tired of conforming to social and domestic roles that make her feel anxious and unfulfilled, Jess wants to find what makes her—not her parents, ex-husband, or tight-knit community—happy.

I like books about Italy as I lived there for many years, but this was set in Lake Come, New Jersey. Eventually Jess moves to Italy and there she meets a man.... You can imagine what happens. At first they don't get on and then they fall in love. Typical romance story. The kind that I don't like at all. Then the whole FBI story line was not very credible. So, to be honest, I didn't like this at all. I gave it two stars. (I read this on my Kindle.)

Then there was Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. 

Oh my golly gosh! What a journey that was! 

Wikipedia writes: Sue Trinder, an orphan raised in "a Fagin-like den of thieves" by her adoptive mother, Mrs Sucksby, is sent to help Richard "Gentleman" Rivers seduce a wealthy heiress. Posing as a maid, Sue is to gain the trust of the lady, Maud Lilly, and eventually persuade her to elope with Gentleman. Once they are married, Gentleman plans to commit Maud to a madhouse and claim her fortune for himself. 

It's quite a con and everything goes to plan but there is a twist in the tail. Then when you think the story has finished, it starts again from Maud's point of view. And then the mind boggles! I'm not going to give anything away. 

I listened to this on Audible so I didn't realise the book hadn't finished when the story came to an end. Then the fun began!

I must warn you, it is quite a long read/listen, but well worth it. The author is lesbian and there is a much publicised explicit episode where the two ladies are in bed caressing each other, having fallen in love. It's only one scene and it didn't bother me. But there is definitely an illicit undertow through the whole book.

Conclusion: I loved it and it surprised me. I like to be surprised. If it's too predictable I probably find it boring. This was anything but.

I gave it five stars!

That is all from me.

I will leave you with a funny:

Happy T-Day all!

Lisca

 

A Postcard A Day - Friday 23 October 2026 - Friday Smiles and Face Off (photo heavy again)

 Hello lovely peeps,

Here I am again ready to share my postcard of the day and the smiles of this week.  Among them them are several faces for DVArtist's Face Off.

First off, my postcard:

Perfect for Friday Smiles! It was sent to me by my friend, with whom I visited Krakow. She bought it and secretly sent it to me. I suppose it represents Gene Kelly Singing In The Rain, and the words 'I'm happy again' are from that song.

That piece of street art can be found in Krakow on the corner of Meiselsa and Ul Bozego Ciala (I apologise to any Poles amongst you as I can't find those Polish characters on my keyboard.) 

From a website called SheWandersMiles I quote:

The Gene Kelly Singing in the Rain mural shows the infamous performance as he swings around a street lamp with the quote “I’m happy again”. The stencil art appeared in spring 2014 to portray a message about a city recovering from the horrors of the world war.

I did some digging online to figure out who created it. Originally, it was believed it was a Banksy giving it some notoriety although it is still shrouded in a similar mystery. Many believe Singing in the Rain was painted by Kuba, and a few thought it was Mr. Trololo. Some think it was inspired by Eduard Khil, Soviet-era singer, who replaced censored words in his “I Am Glad Because I Am Finally Returning Back Home” song with the “Trololo” sounds. His song re-surfaced in 2010 on the internet and became an viral meme.

No matter who the artist is, it’s become a well-known piece of street art in Kraków. On my recent visit in spring 2025 (see photo below), I noticed it had faded quite a bit since I first saw it in 2018. So go and look for it before it totally disappears!

The stamps on this card are the same as the stamps I featured Tuesday:

I wrote about it then.

What have I been doing here in Spain you might ask? Not much time has passed between now and Tuesday, but I went out on Wednesday with my firends from Intercambio (language chat group).

We decided to explore the area to the east of us and drove forty minute to Olula del Rio to visit the Ibañez Museum:

The museum's own website writes: Officially inaugurated on November 24, 2004, the Casa Ibáñez Museum is one of the largest collections of contemporary art in Andalusia. Created between 1996 and 2004 by Andrés García Ibáñez (Olula del Río, 1971),

a painter with a promising young career in contemporary realism, it opened its doors to the public on March 4, 2005. Since then, it has established itself as the most significant cultural institution in the Almanzora region and one of the most representative in southeastern Spain. It is managed by the Ibáñez Cosentino Art Foundation, an institution created in June 2005 and jointly owned by the museum's founder, Andrés García Ibáñez, and the Almería-based multinational Cosentino. 

The museum's holdings currently comprise over 1,200 cataloged works, more than 95% of which were donated to the Foundation by Andrés García Ibáñez. This is, therefore, the artist's private collection, encompassing both his own work and pieces by other artists, which he has amassed in just over a decade. 

Here we are in front of 'The Woman of Almanzora'. (I'm second from the right).

The sculpture The Woman of Almanzora, a work by Antonio López , is striking for its dimensions, eight meters high and 230 tons of marble, and welcomes visitors to this art complex that includes the Pérez Siquier Center and the Ibáñez Museum .

From there we went to a town called Albox, another 20 minutes to the east. There we had fish and chips. Well known among the English but the Spanish have never tasted it. There were a Spanish couple and a Catalan couple in our party and they all enjoyed it:

There was a lot of wind and the parasols were in danger of being blown away, so we had to sit inside. Believe me, in Southern Spain you don't want to sit in the sun.

I had a glass of cider:

After lunch we drove to Macael (5436 inhabitants), another 22 minutes by road.

Macael is known for its white marble. 

We found this pestle and mortar on a roundabout entering the village:

It has been made of white marble, with a gray base and a yellow pestle, the three types of marble characteristic of the Macael mountain range.

Wikipedia writes: The history of the municipality of Macael is linked to that of its main natural resource, Macael white marble.

Today, Macael marble is used for important constructions such as the Burj Al Arab hotel , one of the most luxurious in the world, rated (7 stars). This is thanks to the brilliance and purity of the white Macael marble.

The streets are literally paved with marble:

We found this street  and square among a housing estate.

In the middle there was a mosaic:

We left Macael and drove out of town to see one of the quarries. We saw part of the Cosentino quarry:

We had fun playing around on the blocks that were lying about:

As you can see, we have had a lovely day.

I will leave it at that. There are many faces for the Friday Face Off and at the end I will show you some funnies for you to smile at.

Take care and

Keep Smiling!

Lisca