A Postcard A Day - Friday 30 March 2018 - Friday Smiles

Well, good morning and Good Friday to all!
Today is Good Friday, the biggest religious festival here in Spain. Yes, it is bigger than Christmas (where nothing much happens). Every city, town and village has its processions. Hardly any work has been done this week and the shops have been closed since Thursday. So today I am home enjoying the peace and quiet.
Remember my fridge with magnets?

This is one of them:

Holland is the country I was born and raised in. My mother still lives in Rotterdam (where we were all born). I decided I'd celebrate my birthday, 23rd of March,  with my mother. (Thank you Annie for your kind birthday wishes).
 I have come back from Holland on Wednesday evening. I had a lovely time with my mother (93). The weather was reasonable and i have been taking her where she wanted to go. (shopping, buying flowers, having her hearing aid serviced, buying some nice tops and visiting a friend). Mum can't walk very far, so I push her in the wheelchair.


One of the things we went to buy was a chair bicycle.

One morning I got up late to find mum exercizing in front of the open balcony doors:

I did lots of cooking for her. Things she wouldn't be able to cook herself. We cooked lots of portions so now the freezer is full of lovely meals. I also baked cakes, and for my birthday, I did a cheese cake:

It has a biscuit base and i also used grated coconut in the base and coconut flavoring in the White bit. I didn't use cheese as such. I used Philadelphia cream cheese and yogurt. It is a German récipe. I think Susi (Fröbelsternchen) gave it me.


My cousin brought me a lovely bunch of flowers:

The yellow thing you see next to the flowers, is my mum's talking clock. You hit the yellow part and a (female) voice tells you the time and the temperature. (Mum is practically blind)


Mum lives opposite the shopping centre and we went there every day. One day there were lots of stalls and this was one of them:

Spanish 'churros'! I didn't expect that. I had never seen them outside Spain. And, no, I didn't sample them...


And this was my birthday present:

I have been using it for several days now and I love it! It takes a bit of getting used to and I still don't know how to transfer photos from my camera to the iPad (the little box is a special camera cable). I naively thought that connecting the two with the little cable would be enough. Apparently it is not, so  I will have a read in my camera instructions to find the right settings and see.

So of course my postcard for today has to be Holland. These windmills are outside Rotterdam and I know them very well. There are 19 windmills more or less in formation. Very spectacular. We used to cycle there when we were young.
If that is outside Rotterdam, inside Rotterdam it is a different story. Because R'dam was bombed during the second world war, it is very modern. This is the new market hall, with lots of lovely deli counters and nice things.

That is it from me today. As it is Friday Smiles today and I am going to connect with Annie at A Stitch in Time and with Virginia at Rocking Your World Friday, here are some funnies:

(By the way, I have lived in Bristol for 23 years and I have been to the zoo several times and I have bought a ticket from this man too).

 Now that I have my own iPad, I don't think this is funny anymore.

"No cats have been harmed in the making of this photo"

I have just realized that, although they are funny, they are also slightly worrying, all three of them....

Wishing you all a very happy Easter weekend.

Keep smiling!

Lisca

A Postcard A day - Tuesday 20 March - T for tea pots, stamps and chilli peppers

Hello Lovely people! Here we are again on Tuesday. The week has flown by for me. I have something to look forward to, you see. I'm flying to Holland tomorrow to visit my mother (again). We had gone to stay with her over Christmas and New Year, but I was very ill, so I promised I would come back soon. 

Here are some post cards for you. For a change, they are the cards that I have sent this week.

First one is the card with the chilli peppers. It's on its way to Germany. It goes to a young lady that collects red or blue cards. she showed a link to her collection of red cards and she hasn't got this one.

This is of course art by Alfons Mucha. This particular one is called The Zodiac. I have a whole book of cards by Mucha because many postcrossers request this sort of card. This artist was on the list of favorites of the lady in Russia that is going to receive this card.

Another German destination for the following card. The person I am sending this to lives in Germany and has asked for Word Heritage Sites. Well, the Alhambra in Granada (the city I live nearest to) is on the list of WHSs, so I hope I am making someone happy.

My postoffice lady told me she had new stamps, so of course I had to go along and have a look. This one is for mail inside Europe. It celebrates 100 years since the birth of Camilo José Cela (born 1916), a Spanish author who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1989. He died in 2002.

I love this next stamp. It is all about the potter (el alfarero). It is a large and very glossy stamp. I could only get 10. I wish I could have gotten more....

This yellow stamp with the red carnation is a stamp for outside Europe. It has a letter C on it, meaning that even though the price of the stamp goes up, this stamps will always be valid for mail outside Europe.

One lady in Hershey Pennsylvania collects antique keys. So she has requested cards with keys in them. Luckily I had this card for her and I am sure she will like it.

The small jug bottom left, looks like a saké jug. But I don't know this for sure. Probably not, as the artist is Russian.

I don't think a saké jug qualifies me for the T-party. So I will have to find something else that can contain a drink...

How about a contender for the most beautiful teapot ever:

Which one do you like best? My choice would be the first one with the blue  and the silver.

That's it from me tonight (I am writing this on Monday night). I'm going to visit Elizabeth and Bluebeard at Altered BookLover for the T-Party.
Have a good week,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 16 March 2018 - Friday Smiles

Hello everyone, How are you today? Are you smiling? I am. To prepare this blog I was looking at 'funnies' on Pinterest and couldn't stop looking and couldn't stop laughing either. Hubbie was getting worried and wanted to know why I was crying! (with laughter, I should add).

But seriously, this is Friday smiles where I tell you the good bits of my week. I am retired and that means I am a very busy person. But i keep Thursdays as my 'play day'. I do crafting mostly and hubby lights the fire in my hobby room and I plan something easy for dinner and you don't see me all day. I play.

Yesterday I didn't play, but I 'worked'. I painted an old table with Annie Sloan chalk paint. 

Wonderful stuff that. You don't need to prepare the Wood and one pot goes a very long way. I first used a coat of white

Not because it needs an undercoat, but because I want to 'distress' it so that the white comes through.

I will show you the finished article next week.

These are the fridge magnets on my fridge. Have you got some on your fridge? Why not take a picture of them and tell us a bit about them. I'll tell you about some of them next week. For now I'll share the following:

We do like our food and I love cooking, so sometimes (like now) it is time for a diet and some healthy eating. (like now). I've lost a kilo so far.

No, I haven't forgotten my postcards. Here is a smile for you: A handsome young man from Lapland.

 I love his outfit. The trim, the silver buckle, the gloves and those furry shoes. The card was sent to me from Finland by Pirjo and he used some nice stamps. The one with the little girl is an Easter stamp.

 This lovely lady comes from Poland.

 

It is the Polish actress Beata Tyszkiewicz when she was young. The stamps satisfies my longing for spring as they have flowers on them.

Now for some funnies/cuties:

 

Today I am joining Annie at A Stitch In Time and Virginia at Rocking Your Week Friday.

See you there.

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 13 March 2018 - T for wine again, Switzerland and Ladybirds

Hello lovely people. Here we are again on Tuesday. The week flies by so fast.

Let me start with T for Tuesday, the T-party hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard at Altered Book Lover. The idea is to have a drink or anything drink related in the blog post.

On Friday evening we often go out with our friends. This time we went to a newly opened eatery. We arrived at 9ish and the place was empty. 

We were the first customers. People eat late in Spain and at 10 pm all of a sudden, the place was absolutely packed!

Here is hubby with  my friend after we had ordered, but the drinks had not yet arrived.

Her husband spotted someone he knew at the bar and went over to chat and I then quickly photographed the other side of the restaurant before the hordes would arrive.

I really liked the lamps (made of bottles). Good idea or what?

Then the food and drinks arrived and I completely forgot to take any pictures!  So I'll have to think of something else.

This photo was taken at Sunday lunch time. We were unexpectedly invited to have lunch with a couple from church. They themelves don't drink at all but they know that we drink wine with our meal so they had gotten wine especially for us.  So kind. I didn't have the heart to tell them that I was on a diet. More so becaue the food was so nice. 

In the photo you see only the first course: a salad, croquettes and Serano ham.

Yes, I have done some more scrapbooking on Thursday. This is one of the lay-outs I did. It is my little grandson and his daddy.

Now, before I forget: here are my postcards for today.  This one got sent to me from the UK. It shows the front of a Ladybird book from 1973.

I remember Ladybird books from my childhood but I don't know this one from 1973 as I was an adult by then.
The stamps are lovely. Just a shame someone (the post office?) has cancelled the stamps with a ball point.

The next one comes from Switzerland. It was sent by someone called Thomas. He tells me he lives with his wife (who is a piano teacher at the local grammer school) in Spiez. 

The card is an old travel poster from 1937 designed by Otto Baumberger and comes from the poster collection of the Zurich Museum of design. I really love it and would be happy to have this hanging on my wall.

The stamps are beautiful. The one on the right is about Postcrossing (which is what I do to get all these postcard).

That's all from me this Tuesday. wishing everyone a good week, and see you at the T-Party!
Happy T-Day,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 9 March 2018 - Friday Smiles



Good Morning everyone! Sorry I'm late this morning. I should have prepared this last night. But stuff got in the way....

As it was International Women's Day yesterday, so my postcards are from my own archive and are all about women: Thin or fat,

Young or old,

From different parts of the world,

We are all women and we can be strong if we choose to be,

The diet is going well and my smile for this week is that I have lost weight. 1 kilo in total. I'm very happy with that, because if I lose weight a lot to start with it won't stay off. A Little each week is best.

As I am also wheatfree (trying to), I baked some corn bread the other day. It was supposed to have

poppy seeds in it but I grabbed the wrong bag and it has ghia seeds in it. Oh well... Tasted OK though.

A lot of smiles for me this week were about the groundfloor flat my hubby is building. It is nearing its completion. The utility room has been tiled and we decided to put the freezer in it already. The freezer up until now had lived in the derelict cave next door and every time I needed something out of the freezer I had to wade through the rubble and dust.

There it is! The sink has not been put in yet but you can see the connection are ready. Of course we had to defrost the freezer and then wash it and the drawers.

 A job I don't particularly like, but it has to be done. Then all the foods have to go back in as soon as posible.

 

Also this week, hubby has put the lamps up. Little Wall lights and a central fan.

 

 Then my Dutch lamp above the (as yet non existing) table.

Also this week I have done some more scrapbooking.

 This is my Little grandson Luciano. The journaling reads:"This new snow suit feels strange, and going out in the snow for the first time is a bit scary".

 Here he is again eating his favorite food: pizza. They get it at the local Baker and he'll eat a whole one given half the chance.


Next is something I am not smiling about but I wanted to show you anyway. My 'new' camera has a fault and i cannot use it.

 I have cleaned the contacts of course. I have tried to use it with a friends' lense and it seems to work then. I have contacted the vendor (I bought it secondhand) and he feels very bad about it as he insists he sold it in good faith. He immediately offered to give me my money back.  So there, you see, it has turned into a smile!
I will probably take him up on that. (even though it is a 200 mile round trip).


It has turned out to be a long photo heavy post. I hope you don't mind. Have a great weekend and a good week ahead,
Stay safe
Lisca
And here are some funnies: