A Postcard A Day - Friday 13 November 2026 - Friday Smiles and FFO

 Hello lovely peeps,

Today I hope to make you smile. I will tell you what made me smile this week and I will put some funnies from the Internet at the end.

First off my postcard. Through Postcrossing I receive postcards regularly and they always make me smile. Sometimes it's the image, sometimes it is the stamp and sometimes it is what people write to me. (And sometimes it's all three!). 

Here is my postcard for this week:

It was probably meant to arrive before Halloween, but I only received it the other day. It's not exactly steampunk, but I absolutely love it! Unfortunately the artist is not acknowledged. It could well be an AI creation. 

It was sent to me by a man called Hamda in Longuenil, Quebec.

The stamp is the usual (but beautiful) Canadian stamp:

And it features a wintry
scene at the Qarlinngua sea arch in Arctic Bay in the territory of Nunavut.

Canada Post writes: This sea arch, known as Qarlinngua (pronounced kar-ling-wah), is located approximately 85 kilometres southwest of the community of Arctic Bay, Nunavut, at the north end of Baffin Island. The Inuktitut name means "like pants." 

Locals estimate that the formation is more than 50 metres high. Wind and water erosion over many years likely contributed to the formation.

Nunatsiaq News writes: The winter scene was captured in April 2018 by local Arctic Bay photographer Clare Kines, who traveled out to the formation by snowmobile. Designed by Stéphane Huot, the stamp includes subtle microprinting that identifies the location. 

What have I been up to this week? In my previous blog post, I wrote about my long walk on Sunday. Not much has happened since. I did go to my make-up group as I am learning to use make-up, mascara and the likes.

So here is my face for FFO.

Here I have been trying some eye make up. We are a small group of 7 ladies and a 'teacher', who does make-up professionally (brides etc). There are two other 'older' ladies and the rest is fairly young. 

We have fun and the ladies gossip a lot. Fortunately their dialect (Andalucian) is difficult to understand, so all the gossip goes right over my head. Just as well as I'm not interested. My grandma used to say: They could sell me into slavery in my presence and I would be none the wiser.

I am also enjoying my piano lessons with Simply Piano:

I have my late husband's synthesiser rigged up and connected to the program on my iPad. It's a bit of fun every day.

The weather has been sunny last week and I enjoy having lunch outside on my terrace:

As you can see that particular day I had salmon with green asparagus with risi bisi (rice with peas). 

This week it's going to rain, so probably no more lunches outside.

That is all from me today. There will be some funnies at the end.

Take care and....

Keep smiling!

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 10 November 2026 - T for trees and churros

 Hello lovely peeps,

Has anyone been to Singapore? I haven't but I'd like to. And the Gardens By The Bay is something I'd love to visit. My postcard today is an arwork depicting the Garden By the Bay:

The info on the card reads:

You can see the artist is referred to as Arch. Rather than an individual illustrator, ARCH is a well-known heritage gallery and design studio specializing in creating intricate, multi-layered sustainable wood art pieces and gift collections.

The Gardens by the Bay is an urban park spanning 105 hectares in the Central Region of Singapore, adjacent to the Marina Reservoir.

According to Wikipedia:

The park consists of three waterfront gardens: Bay South Garden in Marina South, Bay East Garden with the Founders' Memorial in Marina East, and Bay Central Garden in the Downtown Core and Kallang.The largest of the gardens at 54 hectares (130 acres) is the Bay South Garden, designed by Grant Associates. Its Flower Dome is the largest glass greenhouse in the world.

Gardens by the Bay was part of the nation's plans to transform its "Garden City" to a "City in a Garden", with the aim of raising the quality of life by enhancing greenery and flora in the city. First announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at Singapore's National Day Rally in 2005, Gardens by the Bay was intended to be Singapore's premier urban outdoor recreation space and one of the country's national icons.

A popular tourist attraction in Singapore, the park had 6.4 million visitors in 2014, and had had 20 million by November 2015 and over 50 million by 2018. In 2024, TripAdvisor's Traveler's Choice Awards Best of the Best ranked it the eighth-best attraction in the world and the best in Asia.

I got the card through Postcrossing and the sender, who lives in Germany, had visited Singapore but had sent the card from Germany (so no exciting stamp from Singapore).

What has been happening here in Spain? 

I was absolutely horrified by the shootings in Krakow in the square I walked around with my friends not so long ago! You can see photos of that same square in my blogpost of 6 October 2026. As I'm writing the BBC announced that the shooter died in hospital. So we will never know his motivations. It's a crazy world!

Sunday I went on a walk organised by provincial government of Granada. It was hosted by the little town of Zújar:

Zújar is near the reservoir visible on the right in my header photo.

We had come with a coach from our village and we were welcomed with a delicious Spanish breakfast: churros!

We waited in line while they were cooked:

And a hot chocolate sauce is poured into a cup:

Then you dip the churros in the chocolate. Hmmmm bliss!

Just the ticket on a cool morning.

There were more than 300 people participating in the two different routes. One short and one long. My friend and I opted for the short route, which was 9 km and not much elevation. The weather was perfect. No rain and temperatures of about 18 degrees C (64,4 F), although it was cooler first thing in the morning.

I will leave it at that and will write more about the walk on Friday.

In the meantime the chocolate will be my drink for the T-Party hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard.

A Postcard A Day - Friday 6 November 2026 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely peeps,

On Friday I always try to tell you all about the things that made me smile. And as per usual. I start with a postcard:

It's from the South Florida Postmark Posse. The Postcrossers had a meeting in Davie (Florida) on July the 21st 2026. My address came out of the bag and they all signed it with a little stamp. I have been to such a meeting myself and I didn't have such a rubber stamp. I had a very sore hand after writing my name 250 times!

In case you can't read it, the writing n the card reads: "Postcrossing began. in Portugal as a small project created by Paulo Magalhan and Ana Campos, who loved receiving meaningful mail and wanted to connect people around the world through real postcards. Since its launch in 2006, the platform has evolved into a global community of thousands and celebrates handwritten mail, cultural exchange and human connection in a digital age."

You can read about the history of Postcrossing here and it also contains a Ted Talk.

The stamp is similar to the card. It is the Postcrossing  US Forever stamp:

Sorry. I couldn't get it straight. But it's the same stamp as in my last blog post.

Not much has happened since I last wrote. I had visitors. My friend from the Netherlands and her man stayed with me:

Ronnie loves a warm lap.

He always makes me smile.

Today (Thursday) was a beautiful sunny day, so I spent all day doing laundry. I think I did 5 loads of washing as I had so much bedding to wash and towels from two lots of visitors. There was sun and a nice little breeze. I'm very glad to say that everything is dry! (Another big smile)

On the Friday, when my visitors arrived, they mentioned that there was no hot water! My electric boiler had broken down. And on the Friday night of a Bank Holiday weekend, there is not much I could do. I did phone my regular plumber and he instructed me to do certain things over the phone, but that didn't help so I had to wait until Tuesday. And sure enough, on Tuesday he came and fixed it! Another smile.

Baza, my nearest town, has an indoor swimming pool. My friend Antonia goes there every week and does exercises in the water with a group of older women. I have been on the waiting list for more than a year, and the other day I got a message to say that there was a place for me! That morning I had to go into town anyway to renew my driving licence, so I went in and got registered, Tomorrow (Friday) will be my first session. 

By the way, I had to do an eye test t renew my driving licence, and I will get another licence for 5 years! Hurray! I thought at my age (75) I would get a shorter time. But 5 years is great!

That is all. I will put some funnies at the end of course to make you all smile.

Take care,

Keep smiling!

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Monday 2 November 2026 - Second on the second and T for Tuesday in one

 Hello lovely peeps,

I'm showing you a post from 2025 around the same date. The honouring of the dead is a big thing here and I too went to the cemetery yesterday to 'see' my husband, having cleaned the marble stone the day before. The cemetery was full of flowers and colour. A feast for the eye!

At the end of my Second on the 2nd I will post a few lines about this week and a drink of course for the T-Party hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard.

Good Morning! Good Monday!

Here in Spain it's a Bank Holiday, i.e. a day off. The official festival day was yesterday, the 1st of November (All Saints day) when everybody goes to the cemetery to pay respects to loved ones who have past away. Graves get spruced up, there are flowers everywhere, and the cemetery is the busiest it's been all year. This year the 1st of November fell on a Sunday, so the Spanish have their day off on Monday!

As I am in Spanish mode I want to show you a Spanish map card today. Postcrossing members often ask for map cards, so I do my best to find them. A few weeks ago I went to a Christian Women's Conference on the coast which involved travelling by bus. When I was at the Granada bus station I found a stall that sold postcards and lo and behold they sold map cards! Hurray! I immediately bought five!

This is the region I live in. I live on the far right of the green bit. I have marked it with a little black asterix. The yellow dotted areas are national parks and as you can see we live just outside a national park. It is a beautiful area. Here is another postcard:

I know it's very dry and these are what they call 'badlands' where nothing grows, but I find it stunningly beautiful!

Finally I'd like to show you a new sheet of postage stamps that I bought at the post office this week:

They are about rural architecture, and to be used for mail inside Europe.

That's me done for today.

See you again tomorrow when I link up with T for Tuesday.

Blessings,

Lisca

This is my T-for-Tuesday post:

Starting with a postcard I received through Postcrossing:

Wikipedia writes:

Mammoth Cave National Park is a national park of the United States in south-central Kentucky. It encompasses portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest known cave system in the world. The park's 52,007 acres (21,046 ha) are located primarily in Edmonson County, with small areas extending eastward into Hart and Barren counties. 

The Green River runs through the park, with a tributary called the Nolin River feeding into the Green just inside the park.

The cave system has formally been known as the Mammoth–Flint Ridge Cave System since 1972, when a connection was discovered between Mammoth Cave and the even longer system under Flint Ridge to the north. As of 2025, more than 426 miles (686 km) of passageways had been surveyed, over 1.5 times longer than the second-longest cave system, Mexico's Ox bel ha underwater cave.

The park was established as a national park on July 1, 1941, after oft-contentious eminent domain proceedings whose consequences still affect the region. It was named a World Heritage Site on October 27, 1981; an international Biosphere Reserve on September 26, 1990; and an International Dark Sky Park on October 28, 2021.

Beautiful isn't it.

The stamp is an unusual one:

It celebrates Postcrossing! 

I've had a busy weekend. It's been All Hallows and All Saints here and today, as All Saints fell on a Sunday, people here also have Monday off.

I'm having my friend Ineke from Holland visiting me and of course we went out for meals and for drinks:

Here we are having a G & T each. Of course this is my 'ticket' to the T-Party.

Outside the bar, where the empties were stacked I found a little carved pumpkin. It's the first one I have seen in Spain:

I'm wearing a jacket and scarf as it was evening and having a dog with us, we had to sit outside. (I'm a cold mortal).

That is all for today,

Happy Second on the 2nd and Happy T-Day to all!

Lisca