A Postcard A Day - Friday 27 January 2023 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely ladies, 

How are you? Here the sun is shining and although it is cold, the weather is beautiful. I have hung out my washing and it is nearly dry. So, all in all, life is good and I have plenty to smile about.

Lets start with a postcard. Always worth a smile:

I thought that in the cold of winter, the idea of a cruise in the sun would be very appealing. This is a vintage travel poster advertising Canadian Pacific (after the work of Tom Purvis, circa 1937).

In 1884, Canadian Pacific Railways began purchasing sailing ships as part of a railway supply service on the Great Lakes. Over time, CPR became a railroad company with widely organized water transportation auxiliaries including the CPR Upper Lake Service, the trans-Pacific service, the British Columbia Coast Steamships, the British Columbia Lake and River Service, the trans-Atlantic service, and the Ferry service. In the 20th century, the company evolved into a transcontinental railroad which operated two transoceanic services which connected Canada with Europe and with Asia. 

The Canadian Pacific Railway Upper Lake Service, also known as the Canadian Pacific Railway Upper Lake Steamships, was a division of Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), which began operating passenger and cargo shipping routes in the Great Lakes during the late 19th century.

One of the ships of the Upper Lake fleet was the SS Keewatin, now a museum ship in its former home port of Port McNicoll.

The postcard has a stamp on it which has the same image as the front of the card:

So what have I been doing this week, apart from paperwork? I'm going to the gym three times a week. 

The cave house next door which Graham was renovating, is now being completed by Juan, a friend from church, who needed a job. 

This is the entrance hall:

The half wall hides the kitchenette:

The door you see in the back ground is the door to the bathroom, which is finished.

I'm very pleased with the progress.

Saturday we had an Intercambio meeting, where English speakers can practice their Spanish while the Spanish speakers can practice their English. We have been given access to a classroom in the middle of the village, but it is not heated (like all public buildings) so I bring an electric heater and an electric kettle so we can make some hot drinks. Below you can see me just as we were leaving. The other girl is a Spanish lady.

But I think my biggest smile this week is  my new TV that arrived on Tuesday:

My lodger helped me carry it down the stairs and together we unpacked it and put it in my bedroom.

He plugged it in and fiddled with the remote. The tv (very smartly) detected the wifi signal, I typed in the password and hey presto, I had Netflix and Amazon Prime! No wonder they call it a Smart TV.

Next week, my friend Andy will hopefully be able to get me some proper tv channels. In the meantime I have so far enjoyed watching The Crown, and Inspector Montalbano (an Italian tv series). It saves on fuel as I now go to bed an hour earlier to watch tv.

I have come back from a knitting and crochet 'circle' of local women. We all bring our work and chat and people give each other advice on how to proceed through difficult bits of knitting. Most people are crocheting garments (Jumpers or cardigans). I'm knitting socks. 

And as I am knitting in the round, which they are not familiar with, and from the toe up, I am an anomaly. On top of that I do a fish lips kiss heel ( yes, go on, Google it!). So next week I have to teach the teacher!

Here is a photo of our group earlier tonight (Thursday):

We are usually about 10 women.

That is it from me tonight.

Have a lovely weekend,

Keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca

 

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday - 23 January 2023 - T for books, admirals and oat cookies

 Hello lovely ladies,

The weather is awful, cold and miserable, so lets talk books. It's the sort of weather to curl up by the stove and read (or even stay in bed and read!). Carola Bartz wrote about her books and it inspired me to tell you how I record the books I read and what I have been reading lately.

But first let me show you a postcard:

It is a cute postcard from Russia which reads: "Happy New Year". But the reason I chose this card today is the stamps. (And the pretty Christmas envelope).

A closer look:

The stamp on the right is part of the envelope. The middle stamp celebrates 125 years of radio.

Radio is a form of information wireless transmission where information carrier is radio waves freely distributed in space. In May 7, 1895, at a meeting of the Russian Physicochemical Society in St. Petersburg, Russian scientist and inventor, physicist and electrical engineer Alexander S. Popov delivered a comprehensive report and demonstrated the operation of the world's first radio receiver.

The stamp provides an image of a radio set of 1895 from the collection of the A.S. Popov Central Museum of Communications.

The stamp on the left celebrates the life of F.F. Ushakov:

 Admiral Fyodor F. Ushakov, 275th Birth Anniversary

Fyodor Fyodorovich Ushakov (24 February  1745 – 14 October 1817) was an 18th century Russian naval commander and admiral. He is notable for winning every engagement he participated in as the Admiral of the Russian fleet.

He was born in Burnakovo not far from Rybinsk in the Yaroslav province (about 120 km north of Moscow).

There are many monuments of him. At the bust of this admiral, a commemoration was held in Rybinsk.

In Rybinsk, on February 24, 2020, the 275th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Navy operator,  Admiral F.F. Ushakov, was celebrated.

At the monument of the admiral there was a solemn event: the performance of officials, laying of flowers to the monument of F.F. Ushakov.

Now, as promised, something about books. Carola Bartz wrote about some of the books she read and she asked if anyone keeps a record of what they read. Yes, I do! I have a little book called Book Journal.

It's a little book that I have been using since 2004, where I write what I have been reading. There is an alphabetical index, like in the telephone ledgers of old. 

The pages allocated to each letter have long been filled so I have put stickers on the pages where I have continued. On the page I write the author, the title and the year I read it. And then I write a little bit about the plot, so I will recognize it in the future. I also give it stars out of five. I give it points on how much I enjoyed the book. Not necessarily on how well it is written. 

Next week I hope to write about a few really good books I have read recently.

But now, as it is the T-Party hosted by Elizabeth and Bleubeard, I have a drink for you.

It is my coffee and two oat cookies made by my friend Patricia. I was invited there on Friday evening to eat pizza, and she gave me some cookies to take home. Here is a rather unclear photo (sorry) of me and Patricia that evening. 

I am holding a glass of wine. So that is two drinks for the T-Party!

That is all from me today.

Happy T-Day

Keep smiling!

Hugs

Lisca

PS I'm having problems commenting on certain blogs. Kate Yetter, Sharon and Jo to mention a few.I'm really sorry. They tell me to sign into Google or Wordpress.

A Postcard A Day - Friday 19 January 2023 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely ladies,

Happy Friday to you all! 

Here in Spain the cold has arrived! And the card I have chosen reflects this cold weather:

This gorgeous card comes to me from Minsk in Belarus. The title of the card is ´Little Joy´ and in brackets: ´To feel warmly supported by a friend...´ Very sweet.

The stamp is impressive. 

You can see the latin name of the animal is Ovis Musimon. I looked it up and Wikipedia says this:

The European mouflon (Ovis aries musimon) is a feral subspecies of the primitive domestic sheep. It was originally found only on the Mediterranean islands of Corsica and Sardinia, but has since been introduced into many other regions of Europe. It is not to be confused with Ovis gmelini, also called the mouflon, which is found in Western Asia and is also ancestral to modern domestic sheep.

So, what has been happening with me? I have been inundated with paperwork, but I'm doing something every day and slowly, with the help of others, I'm getting there. (Big smile)

My friends came to visit earlier in the week, (Another bis smile but sorry, I forgot to take any pictures) and, amongst other things, we talked about televisions, as I want to buy a tv set. Our friend Andy has done a bit of homework and I have a few to choose from, so watch this space as they say.

Here in our village it's our patronal festival this weekend starting Friday and it will be very busy. I'm writing this on Thursday night but I can tell you what is going to happen:

One of the most celebrated saints in our area is San Sebastián, the young Roman military man who was riddled with arrows by his executioners until he became a kind of hedgehog. 

Such popularity is, without a doubt, a consequence of the fervor that Don Juan de Austria expressed for him during the campaign against the Moorish uprising of Aben-Humeya. But although there are many towns that celebrate it, there is none that surpasses Caniles in originality.

Caniles maintains, as the main attraction of its festivities, the tradition of the Robo del Santo during the procession. Several groups try to seize the raised cross that leads the parade, carried by one of the 'thieves' from the previous year. When someone manages to get hold of the cross, it is said that he has stolen the saint, making his group the winner of the contest. Those who win, in addition to taking charge of the cross until the end of the procession, must also bear the expenses of the following year's festivities.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I woke up to snowy mountains and it was very cold at 8 in the morning.

Then just before I went to the gym the sun shone in between the heavy clouds:

Here are the mountains again through the window at the gym:

I'll leave it at that. I'm going to link up with Annie at A Stitch In Time and share my smiles.

As per usual, I will put some funnies at the end.

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend,

Keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 17 January 2023 - T for Denmark and palm trees

 Hello lovely ladies, (and the occasional gent),

Days are flying by and it is Monday night already. Today's postcard is from a location that I myself have visited:

Stevns Klint, known as the Cliffs of Stevns in English, is a white chalk cliff located some 6 km (3.7 mi) southeast of Store Heddinge on the Danish island of Zealand. Stretching 17 km (11 mi) along the coast, it is of geological importance as one of the best exposed Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) boundaries in the world.

The lower strata from the cliff are from the Cretaceous and are composed of soft chalk, indicating a relatively deep marine depositional environment. The dark layer of fiskeler, mainly five to ten centimeters thick, clearly marks the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. The fiskeler is enriched in iridium, a fact used as an argument for the Alvarez hypothesis that the worldwide Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction was caused by the impact of an asteroid. Following the boundary is a layer of darker clay and chalk between 10 and 30 cm thick, corresponding to a period of low biological diversity on the sea floor immediately after the K-Pg Boundary. The layers can also be seen deep in the tunnels of Stevnsfortet, a cold-war fortress constructed in 1953. 

The upper layers of the cliff consist of bryozoa chalk and were deposited during the early Paleogene. The bryozoa chalkin the cliff is highly shock resistant to both conventional and nuclear weapons.

 Subject to frequent erosion, the cliff rises to a height of up to 40 m (130 ft). Because of its exceptional fossil record, Stevens Klint was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014.

In 2008 Cold War Museum Stevns Fortress opened to the public. It features a large exhibition of military equipment and a 1.5-hour guided tour in the large underground system of the fortress. 

Stevnsfort was a secret part of the defense of Denmark and NATO. The peninsula of Stevns would have been on the absolute frontline if war had broken out between the East and the West. This is why Stevnsfort was built, and for 40 years, the staff here was ready for war around the clock.

The underground system of the fortress features 1.6 kilometres (0.99 mi) of tunnels, living quarters and command centers, including a hospital and a chapel. There are also two ammunition depots for its two 15 centimetres (5.9 in) cannons. 

The tunnels are 18–20 metres (59–66 ft) below the surface, dug deep into the chalk of Stevns. The top-secret fortress was built in 1953 and remained operational until 2000.

It was really interesting to visit the Cold War Museum as my husband used to be in the military during the Cold War. He recognised weapons he had worked with.

Nearby is the Højerup old church. The church was built in Romanesque style in the year 1250.

The church was built by a sailor in distress who promised to build a chapel if he was saved.

The church is located on the 30 m. high cliff. It was consecrated in 1357 , but the sea undermined the cliff. In the 1600s the cliff started to chip away at the cemetery with the macabre result coffins and skeletons started sticking out of the cliff. In 1910 they gave up to use the church, it would take another 18 years before fate caught up to the building.

On 16 March 1928 at five o'clock in the morning there was a cliff collapses at Højerup. It took the choir from Højerup old Church into the fall.

  Quite soon after the crash, it was decided to reinforce the church against further slides. Today the towering church stands proudly at the extreme edge of the cliff, and it vanished choir has been replaced by an observation deck that provides a great view of the cliff and sea.

I was going to show you our photos from when we were there but I can't find them so all the photos here are from the Internet.

The stamp is very pretty. It is from a series of stamps about astronomy in Denmark.

As today is T for Tuesday, hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard, I shall add a photo of a drink. So here is my glass of white wine that I had the other day when I cooked a slice of salmon.

The following photos I took specially for Elizabeth, because she likes palm trees. This is my sisters garden from the first floor:

I was standing on the terrace outside my room.

The garden is being maintained by a gardener and my sister doesn’t know the names of the shrubs and trees that grow there.

But I think her garden is beautiful and mature.

She even has a hammock, but it was not warm enough to lie in it.

I think this remarkable round splaying shrub is also a palm tree, but a short one.

That is it from me today. Sorry if it was rather long. We’ll done if you got this far.

Bye for now,

Happy T-Day,

Hugs,

Lisca