A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 2 June 2020 - T for Tuesday and Second on the 2nd

Hello lovely ladies.

How are you all? Today we are invited to the T-Party hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard, and on top of that, it is also the second of the month so we also share an old blogpost.

First off is my postcard for today

It comes from Finland and it is a black and white image of a female soldier, but there is no date to indicate from which era this photo was taken. It was sent to me by Kaisa, who lives in Helsinki and tells me that she visited the Lotta Museum. This museum is all about the history of Finland. If I am not mistaken, Finland has just celebrated its 100th birthday. I hadn't realized that it is such a new country.

The stamps are beautiful. I have no idea what the angry young man making rude gestures is supposed to represent, and I have no time to look it up as I am late as it is. Sorry.

My 'ticket' for the T-Party is this photo, taken by one of my friends in the photo club. It pictures a cup of (I assume coffee) on a balcony overlooking our nearby little town of Baza.

This is where I will be going as soon as I have this blogpost sent into the ether: Baza. I'm going to order some new fly screens. I have taken the measurements and I will choose and order them so I will be ready for summer.

Below I will show you a blogpost from June 2015. We had been travelling (oh delight!) and you will see the arched windows of the house (Next door) we are now living in. 

Wishing you all a very happy T-Day,

Stay healthy,

Hugs,

Lisca

SECOND ON THE SECOND:

Hi folks! Sorry I had to miss last week, we were still travelling through Europe. We've now finally arrived home (Thursday). Oh its good to be home! I'm still not completely sorted out and I haven't washed everything, but hey, easy does it.

                      

 Here is the photo of my desk. No project on the go as yet. (although I should be making a card for the first birthday of one of our grandchildren) Instead you can see two scrapbook albums with page protectors that I bought in the UK. In the foreground is some artwork by Hannah Dunnett, whose work I love.

Work on our house is continuing and we now have window frames in both arches. Hopefully the glazier will put glass in soon.

I've had to stop Postcrossing the two months I was travelling but I'm back in the swing of sending and receiving postcards again. Here is one of the cards I received. I love turtles and tortoises, so I really love this card. 

Today was the first sunny and warm day after a cold spell. I'm sitting in the shade of the vine.  Our neighbour pruned it (the vine) properly at the right time of year and the right position of the moon etc. Look at the abundance of baby grapes growing!

That's it from me today. Hopefully I'll have a more interesting page next time.

Have a great week everyone, 

God bless,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 29 May 2020 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely girls, Here we are again on Friday. Time goes so fast, I can't believe it!

I'm going to show you what made me smile this week and tell you what I have been up to. 

First off two lovely postcards:

This first one is from Germany and show a pretty log cabin with a window box full of colourful geraniums. That makes me smile.

The second card comes from Slovenia. If you haven't eaten yet, look away now as your mouth will start watering when you see this: Smoked trout on buckwheat grains. 

It was sent to me by Janet, who lives in Radovljica on Lake Bled, a lovely old town with a bee museum.

The stamp also has a food theme. 

Šelinka from the Karst Region

The Karst region, usually thought of as having quite a poor traditional cuisine, is the home of a hotpot called šelínka, the main ingredient of which is aromatic celery, which in the Karst is known as šelín. This dish is made from the leaves and roots of celery, together with a piece of pork (or ham, sausage or bacon). Some people like to add potatoes, rice or beans. As a hotpot, šelínka was an everyday dish, but the roots and leaves of celery were also used to make a salad, or the roots were fried (ocvrt šelín). Celery could also be grated into thin slices (šelín na ubelč) and served with a potato salad. This method of preparing celery was particularly popular as a side dish for a Christmas or New Year’s dinner. Various types of celery hotpots go very well with buckwheat polenta.

So what have I done this week? Friday, apart from reading your blogs I went to the post office to collect a parcel, I made a pineapple upside down cake and we enjoyed the first visit from our friends for months.

Saturday was a potter day, but my highlight was discovering my chili peppers had germinated! It had taken exactly a month. 

On Sunday I finished my jigsaw. Hurray!

On Tuesday I popped in at my friend Antonia's. She cares for her sister who has Down's syndrome. It was difficult to keep said sister from hugging and kissing me. She cannot understand why we can't cuddle like we normally do. What a shame.

On Wednesday we decided to drive to our second home, where we normally go once a week. We hadn't been since February, so we wanted to collect mail and make sure everything was OK. There were weeds thigh high! Hubby did a bit of hacking at the weeds, but wasn't really dressed to do messy work. We'll do more next week.

Yesterday my friend Antonia's husband brought us a bag of wood chip mulch. (He is a carpenter and it is the sort of stuff he throws away). I took a 'close-up' of the top of the bag, as he had tied the bag with a strong type of grass.

Of course I have some funnies/puns for you at the end. If I have shown you them before, then I apologise. 

This coming Sunday is a special Sunday for us as it is Pentecost. (remembering when believers received the Holy Spirit for the first time).

Now I'm off to Annie at A Stitch In Time and to Virginia at Rocking Your week Friday.

Have a lovely weekend all,

Stay safe and keep smiling!

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 26 May 2020 - T for one foot in the past and one in the park

Good morning ladies, it's time to join Elizabeth and Bleubeard's T-Party. I'm inviting you to some vintage tea here. It makes a change from coffee.

Our restrictions have been relaxed a bit and we can now go out a bit more. Older people still only at certain hours (unfortunately we come under 'older'). But I managed to go to Baza on my own the other day and my errand took me through the park.

The park was deserted. So weird. It is usually very busy with older people chatting on benches and children playing.

There are flowers and the park looks well maintained in spite of the lockdown.

In this photo you can see that people were sitting outside having coffee. I think the tables should be further apart, having read the rules, but who am I....

This is a sad sight: The children's playground cordonned off.

Our little town of Baza is nothing special but there are many old houses. Here are some that appeared on my phone.

Lets not forget my postcards!  I received this one from Russia. It was sent to me by Lena who lives in Nizhniy Tagil,  located 25 kilometers (16 mi) east of the virtual border between Europe and Asia. Population: 361,811 (2010 Census);

The poster image on the card is from 1964 (the Soviet era) and is entitled 'As you work, so you must earn' by Victor Govorkov.

And the stamps are the regular Russian stamps, but I like them. They are so pretty.

The next card is an artistic nude. I think it is a photo that has been photoshopped. But nevertheless, it's very beautiful.

It comes to me from the Ukraine, from a Black Sea resort called Odessa.

The stamps are really spectacular! 
The one on the left celebrated the 1000th Anniversary Since the Reign of Yaroslav the Wise, 978-1054.
The middle stamps is entitled Before The Rain by Maksim Kisiliyov.

The stamp on the right is all about an epic film called The Rising hawk. I found this information about it:

The historical action movie of Ukrainian filmmaker Akhtem Seitablayev 'Zakhar Berkut' (The Rising Hawk) will be released on October 10, 2019.

 

According to movies’ story, the Mongol horde, headed by the Khan Burundai, moves to the west, destroying everything in its path. Having reached the high Carpathian Mountains, the army stops at the foot. However, at night, several local hunters - the Berkut's brothers - secretly climb into the camp and release prisoners. Driven by fury Khan decides to revenge and destroy the Carpathian settlements. For this, he finds a traitor among the locals, who reveals a secret passage in the mountains. However, a small community of mountain hunters under the leadership of 'Zakhar Berkut', have the plan how to stop a numerous enemy forever.

The big international actor's team from Ukraine, the United States, Kazakhstan, Great Britain and Mongolia will play part in Zakhar Berkut movie. The original story was created by Ivan Franko, the 19th-century poet and prosaic from western Ukraine.

The stamp below is a mystery to me. I have looked through the catalogue all the way back to 2010 and haven't found it, so it must be older than that.

The last stamp was issued in 2012 and is from an ongoing series of trees and plants.

That is it from me for today. I wish everyone a very happy T-Day and...

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Friday 22 May 2020 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely people, Here we are again on Friday (Time flies!).

We're joining Annie once again with the smiles from our week.

What made me smile this week, no doubt are my postcards. Here is one from Germany. From Bavaria to be precise. It mentions a lot of great things about Bavaria.

The Christkindlmarkt (literally Baby Jesus market) is the famous Christmas market:

The Bavarian wald brotzeit ( literally bread time) is a lovely lunch to go with great german beer:

The Oktoberfest is the famous beer fest. It's almost a rite of passage for young men in Europe to go at least once in their lives to the Oktoberfest.
And the Lederhosen are the traditional leather shorts that men wear:

(How's that for eye candy?)

And the Chiemsee Dirndl is the traditional dress for ladies.

The stamps are lovely. Again that Sesamestreet stamp. It always makes me smile.

The second card coincidentally also comes from Germany. It's just a sweet image of a little boy by the water. It makes me long for the beach...

What have I been up to this week? See for yourself...

We enter a photo every month at the photo club. The theme this month was 'Sea'. As we are in lockdown, it had to be a photo from our archives. This was mine.  It was a lovely November day (18 Nov 2016) in a little hamlet called La Isleta del Moro on the Cabo de Gata coast. We were eating at a restaurant right by the 'beach' and this cat was lying by my chair, no doubt waiting for some scraps. 

I found this unusual butterfly on my tomato plants. I nearly didn't see it! It has perfect camouflage colours. 

I missed Tuesday's collage but I did go to the market, which was held for the first time since the lockdown.

All the stalls were cordoned off.

And one could only enter from one end of the street, where the 'Proteccion Civil'  checked if you had masks and gloves and provided hand sanitiser.

It was really weird. There was only a fraction of the stalls we normally get and of course only food stalls were allowed.

Here is a photo by a friend from the photoclub. It is our village of Caniles seen from a distance.

That was my week. 

I shall go and visit Virginia at Rocking Your Week Friday, and of course Annie at A Stitch In Time. 

As usual I will post some funnies at the end.

Have a lovely weekend,

Stay safe,

Hugs,

Lisca

I must be giving away my age here, but I can remember each and every one of these!

The statue of Abraham Lincoln with a mask:

My friend Fifi, whom I used to work with,  found this urban art somewhere in Bristol . The 'pearl' is an alarm box, lol.