A Postcard A Day - Friday 23 August 2019 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely peeps, It's Friday again. Time to recall the smiles in our week and share them with a link to Annie at A Stitch In Time.

We've been on holiday to Portugal to spend some time with one of our boys and his family. Our daughter-in-law's father is Portuguese and they have a lovely villa in the Algarve. The family were staying there and kindly invited us to spend a couple of days with them at the villa.

Coincidentally I received a postcard from Portugal the week before leaving. It is from Maria José and it shows the map of the country.

We were staying almost at the furthest south-west point of Portugal. (Between the letters A and L on the card).

The stamp is beautiful and depicts one of the most popular pastries of Portugal. Pastel de Tentúgal. It is one of the things I like about Portugal, all those luscious pastries! (Look at my Tuesday blog post to see our visit to a lovely oldie worldie tearoom).

My second card comes from New York City  in the US. It hasn't got much written on it other than that there is a thunderstorm, so the sender has decided he/she will write some postcards.

The image on the card is a dress from the 1989 spring/summer collection of fashion designer Patrick Kelly.

The '80s was a blast for everyone, but this designer in particular was not only having the time of his life, but making history as well. Patrick Kelly was an American designer from Mississippi, a facet he kept central to his brand throughout his career. He started in Atlanta, then moved to New York, starting his education at Parsons School of Design before moving to Paris. Kelly entered the Paris fashion scene in 1985 after being advised by his friend, the model and Black fashion icon, Pat Cleveland, to relocate and launch his career in the fashion capital. He is remembered not only for his whimsical, one-of-a-kind designs, but for his larger than life personality to match.

Let me show you some photos from Portugal. Here is a plaque, or large cork card I saw on the wall somewhere.

I always love to see the storks. We can usually spot the nests on high poles, but not often do we see them the storks around. There were quite a few circling on this occasion and I managed to get a good shot of one of them:

Of course the symbol of Portugal is the colourful cockerel. You see it everywhere. This is the fridge magnet I bought.

This is one of the tiles for sale. It has the cockerel on it and sardines which are the fish that this part of the world is famous for.

I thought this sign would make you smile. Apparently the portughese word for toilets is 'latrina'. Of course the English speakers among us will think of a hole in the ground. It had me chuckling. 

Outside the castle that we visited in Silves, there was this large statue. (Don't ask me who it is. I forgot to make a note of it). Our youngest grandchild is looking up in awe.

The oldest grandchild was not that i mpressed and was more interested to have a private moment at the back of the statue.

As usual, I will put some funnies at the end. They are all taken at weddings this time, and they all made me smile. 

Have a good week, and

Keep smiling!

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 20 August 2019 - T for Isabel's tea room and a random letter

Hello lovely peeps,

We are back from the Algarve (Portugal). And I'm joining Elizabeth and Bleubeard's T-party with images from there. More about that later.

Lets have a look at my postcards:

It reads:

Get a dictionary.

- The first word of your letter must be chosen from page 48.

- The fifth word of your letter must be chosen from page 10.

- The twelfth word of your letter must be chosen from page 100.

- The eighteenth word of your letter must be chosen from page 25.

The above card came to me from Canada. Written by a Chinese (girl, I assume) who is studying in Halifax. She hopes I will enjoy playing the game of words on the card. Well, I might just do that. But who am I going to send the letter to?

The stamps are gorgeous. The stamp with HM the queen is lovely. She is smiling. The stamp on the right has an unusual subject: covered bridges. I have never seen a covered bridge, but Canada must have several otherwise they wouldn't have a stamp series about them.

I found some info:

Red Bridge

Description
The bridge is known as Similkameen River Bridge No. 6 at mile 163.8 on the Great Northern Railway’s Cascade Division.  It is 942 feet long.  The bridge is called a “through timber trusspan” with three spans involved in this particular bridge. It was built by Victoria, Vancouver and Eastern Railroad (V.V. and E) in 1907, during the gold mining era. Train service began in December 1909. The railway put an end to horse drawn freight service and led to renewed prosperity at Hedley. The Kettle Valley line was completed between Penticton and Princeton in 1915 and through the Coquihalla to Hope in 1916.

The Red Bridge spans the Similkameen River and is an integral reminder of the bygone time when the V.V. and E. Railway ran up the valley.  This line has been abandoned for many years.  The Red Bridge is used as a highway bridge to the south side of the river and to the Ashnola.  It serves as a passage to the world-renowned Cathedral Lakes Park.

Heritage Value
The Red Bridge is the last of three such structures which could be seen in the lower valley only a decade ago. The Red Bridge is one of the only bridges of this type in Western Canada. In greater Canada, the Red Bridge is one of the only covered bridges that remains standing and is still in use by public and industry. The Red Bridge is one of the last historic standing structures in the Similkameen.

Character-Defining Elements                                                                   The Red Bridge is unique in that its timber structure is enclosed with red painted board sheathing to protect the wood from the elements, and as a result protection from dryness and/or wetness and rotting.  

From the Heritage Nomination Form

The next card comes from Germany. It is artwork by Valeria Docampo and is called ' Im Garten des Putschblumen'.

Valeria is an Argentinian illustrator who now lives in France and specializes in children's books. Here is a link to some of her work.

I don't think Putchblumen exist. At least I am not familiar with that word. Perhaps some of our German speaking friends might  want to comment on this. (I know that a military coup is sometimes called a 'putsch'.)

Now I will take you to Portugal. It was very hot and we couldn't go to the beach as the sand was too hot for the children to walk on and the ocean too cold (and too dangerous for small children) to swim in. So we did some sightseeing and played around the pool the rest of the time.

Here we are in the town of Portimao. There is a gorgeous little tea room that was famous for its cakes. So we had to visit. 

 It is called 'A Casa Da Isabel' (loosely translated: at Isabel's).

 It has a lovely tiled facade. Here is one of our grandchildren in the doorway.

Inside was very small. There are four tables to sit at. R and F are ordering coffee and cakes. What a choice

 Here is a picture of the choice we had.

Here is the corridor as we came in and there is another display cabinet on the left.

Here is a better picture of it.

One of our grandies chose the choc cake with the orange thingies. We asked and were told the orange bits are made of eggyolk and sugar.

Looking up above the counter, there is a gorgeous oldie-worldie cabinet on the wall.

Hubby has finally chosen (a carob cake, very popular in Portugal), 

 and we both had coffee of course.

The kids at the next table had an assortment and I managed to delay them for a few seconds so I could take the picture!

 Daniel decided he didn't like the orange bits so we painstakingly removed every little bit of orange, so he could eat it.

When I walked through the corridor to the toilets I took these pictures:

Isn't it delightful? 
I think this will qualify me for the T-Party. 
So I wish everyone a happy T-Day,
Hus,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 16 August 2019 - Friday Smiles from Portugal

Hello everyone. It’s a quickie today as we are on holiday in Portugal with one set of grandchildren and their parents. Today is our 27th wedding anniversary. The card above arrived before we went on holiday from our lovely friend Claire, who makes all her cards herself and never misses a birthday or anniversary. Thank you Claire.

That is it from me today as it is extremely difficult to do this on an iPad. The page doesn’t scroll, so I am doing this blind!

Have a lovely weekend all,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 13 August 2019 - T for royalty, pillows and cores

Here we are again at T for Tuesday, and I am looking forward to sharing a drink with Bleubeard and Elizabeth and all of you who are there.

In my Postcrossing profile, I mention that I like royals. I find monarchies a fascinating thing. It is amazing how monarchies have survived in these modern times. Some of course haven't and here in Spain they have been re-instated, which feels a bit contrived, but hey, we won't go there. My first postcard comes from the Netherlands, and shows the three princesses. From L to R: Princess Amalia, 7-12-07, princess Alexia, 26-6-05 and princess Ariane, 10-04-07. They were photographed here in 2017.

And I don't have to tell you that the next one comes from Russia. It is a photo of the Romanovs in 1913. In the middle is Tsar Nicholas II, The ladies are from L to R: his daughter Grand duchess Olga, another daughter Maria, then his wife the tsarina Alexandra, his youngest daughter Anatasia, their only son Alexei and on the right daughter Tatiana.

It is a well known fact that Alexei had hemophilia and was very delicate. Then tragically the whole family was assassinated by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

The stamp is from a series of State awards in 2018. I have not been able to find out more about them.

I might have mentioned that I bought a duvet cover at Lidl (German supermarket) and bought a single one by mistake, when I needed a double. I then was able to order another single online so that I at least had a pair. I will keep them for the guest bedroom which has two single beds, which can be put together to make a 'matrimonial'. But the single duvet covers had one pillow case and it was a Spanish size. I didn't have any Spanish pillows! Our English pillows are rectangular and the Spanish pillows are thin and long. You can see the difference in this picture. 

  It all depends where the bedding comes from. When my parents downsized they gave me a lot of bed linen, so just to make things a little bit more complicated, I have many Dutch pillow cases and pillows, which are square! Anyway last Tuesday I went to the market here in the village to buy some Spanish pillows.

This is the stall that sells bed covers, sheets and duvet covers and lots of other nice things. I bought the pillows and because i wanted to have a look at some other stalls, I asked the  stall holder if he could keep them for me until i have finished shopping. 

I went to visit the teas and herbs man. I love his stall. He has so many different teas and infusions and also any herb or spice you can think of and many more that i have never heard of.

I bought some chilli pepper and some piripiri (also hot) and some Herbes de la Provence (mixed herbs). 

These are all teas and infusions:

When i had finished my purchases I went to collect my pillows and the man posed for me with my pillows in his hands.

The whole bedding saga has a happy ending because i was able to find the duvet cover that i wanted in the 'double' size later in the week.

The last photo is a sculpture i wanted to share with you. I'm trying to find out where it is and who made it.

The smaller sculpture (the child) is made of cores taken out of the big sculpture. I find it very beautiful and thought provoking. If anyone has seen this around on social media or elsewhere I'd like to know more. I got it on Facebook from an Italian friend, who  has not been able to find out more either.

That's it from me today. I will try to do as many comments as I can today but then tomorrow morning we will be leaving early and travelling down to Portugal. We will be on the road all day.
I will try to remember to take pictures and you will be able to see them next week.

Happy T-Day all,
Hugs,
Lisca

Edits!
The eldest princess of the Netherlands was born in 2003 (not in 2007. That was a mistake that Elizabeth kindly pointed out)
This is what they look like now in 2019:

About the sculpture: A Postcrossing friend called Jacki wrote:
https://www.instagram.com/chadknight/?hl=it
It is not a real sculpture. Its digital art by Chad Knight.
He also works for Nike.
If the above link does not work, then google Chad Knight instagram.
Crazy stuff!