A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 30 April 2019 - T for orange pastries, glazier and pizza

Hello lovely people! Good Morning! It's Tuesday again. Are we ready to join the T-Party at Elizabeth and Bluebeard's? All you need is a beverage, or a beverage related item in your blog post. You will see mine further down.

I am first going to show you some postcards as i always do. This first one I received from Poland from a lady called Aleksandra. I love the image/photo of the white stallion with the elf like lady. The whole atmosphere seems mystical. Very nice. 

 The stamp is beautiful too. It is the stamp commemorating Easter. Wielkanoc is Polish for Easter and literally means the great Night.

The second card comes from Thailand. I don't know what it shows as i can't read the Thai on the back of the card. I assume it is one of their impressive temples. It was sent to me by  Tai, a young woman who is studying traditional Thai medicin, and lives with her family and her cat Chok in Bankok.

The yellow stamp is marking King Rama X’s 65th birthday. The stamp with the rose (the symbol of love in Thailand) was issued in February 2017 on the occasion of Valentine's Day. 
Valentine’s Day is celebrated in Thailand as the Day of Love and stamps are issued annually to mark the occasion. Most often, these feature roses and 2017 is no exception. This year’s “Symbol of Love” issue was released on February 7 and features the “polygon rose” which is “formed by many two-dimensional facet graphics of which different-shaped facets and gradient colors superbly represent multidimensional love,” according to Thailand Post. They go on to call this the “queen of all flowers.”

Meanwhile in the Netherlands there was also a king with a birthday. King Willem Alexander's birthday on the 27th of April is called King's Day and is widely and wildly celebrated in Holland. The king is very popular as is his wife., queen Maxima and their three teenage daughters. 

Orange, the national colour, is predominant. Everybody wears orange and food  and cakes are orange, including these 'tompouces'. 

Tompouces are a Dutch pastry that consists of two layers of puff pastry filled with yellow pastry cream and has pink icing on the top. Of course on King's Day the icing is orange.

My mum would have spent all day in front of the television as King's Day and the Royal family would be televised all day. I don't have TV and I don't live in the country so I have to make do with photos.

In stead of tompouces (named after a circus dwarf called Tom Pouce. Pouce meaning 'thumb' in french.), I made a walnut and banana cake.

It turned out well.

My painting of Rotterdam is hanging on the wall again. We had gone to the glazier in the nearby town to have non-reflective glass put in.

While he was hanging it up, my hubby accidentally broke the glass! So we had to go back to the glazier.

His name is Antonio and this is his workshop. 

He is just finishing working on my picture frame.

The other thing we got done this week is a perspex cover on the gate to the patio. There was so much wind coming through that gate that my hanging baskets were dangerously rocking in the wind. 

It is much more pleasant now and it looks good too. And of course it gives more privacy, although it is the door to the carport.

On Friday evening we went out with our friends to the pizzería. I am drinking a Radler (lager beer with lemon) and the others are having Cerveza Tostada, a malty beer.

We had two pizzas which we shared. Of course we get a tapa (snack) with every round of drinks, so two pizzas is more than enough.

Our friends are Mexican and like their chillies. So we always ask for a bottle of chili oil. I love it too. 

That is it from me today. I wish you all a great T-Day and

Stay safe,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 26 April 2019 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely ladies (and the occasional man),

Here I am again with my postcards and some natter about my life.

Of course today is Friday and I think back on all things positive and what made me smile this past week.

A full mailbox always makes me smile. I received several postcards this week.

The first postcard I thought was in very poor taste. I think it was meant to be funny, but I don't have that sort of sense of humor. Anyway it comes from the USA and they might have a different sense of humor than we Europeans.

The stamps are absolutely fab! Look at them! There is Marvin Gaye in the middle and John Lennon next to him. But then on the left is Cordell Hull. He was an American politician who won the Nobel Peace prize in 1945.

Cordell Hull was an American politician from Tennessee best known as the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during most of World War II.

 The neighbourhood where my parents lived (and my mum still lives) has street names of Nobel Prize winners. For more than 40 years they lived in the Cordell Hull Plaats in Rotterdam. 

My next card comes from Taiwan and has some typical Taiwanese food on it, luckily also written in English.

 The stamps has a plant on it: Solanum Americanum, or American Nightshade

 So, what have i been up`to this week? I made some dough, pulled it out as thin as possible and then raided the fridge for things to put on it.

 Then I put it in the little oven we have in our stove/woodburner.

It came out perfect. And we enjoyed our home made pizza.

 We do have enough almond shells for our stove stocked up and the weather will get warm soon, but we liked the quality we were able to get lately, so hubby decided to get another load while the quality is good and the price low. We'll put them away for next winter.

 The almond shells were already bagged up and all we had to do was load up. Here you see my hubby (on the right) and the car on the weigh bridge.

 This week I also received a pocket letter from a lovely lady in California. The theme was Llamas and cacti.

The green bits are bits of washi tape to prevent everything from falling out. I should have removed them before taking the picture.

I love this paper succulent. Isn't it lovely?

That is it from me today.
As usual there are a few funnies at the end and
I'll be linking up with Annie at A Stitch In Time and with Virginia at Rocking Your World Friday.

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend and a good week ahead.
Hugs,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 23 april 2019 - T for stamps, stapelia and garlic

Good Morning! I'm late this morning. Usually I write my blog the night before but that was not possible. We were late birds and did n't go to bed until 2 am, by then it was too late to sit at the computer and compose something. So here I am, sipping some juice while I hear my hubby gently snoring.

Let me start by saying that Elizabeth and Bluebeard have a temporary new blog address: https://alteredbooksandmixedmedia.blogspot.com/

My first postcard comes from Germany, from a guy called Alex. Now I know as well as you do that there are no large volcanoes in Germany! So where is this?

It is the Viluchinsky Volcano in the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's far east. It is so far east that it nearly touches Alaska. Alex writes that he bought the card in Russia when he was visiting there, but that he has never been to the east of Russia.

The stamps are lovely and new to me:

Heinz Sielmann, who features on the first stamp. He was a wildlife photographer, biologist, zoologist and documentary film maker. He was a household name in Germany where he started to work for television in 1956 and his tv program Expeditionen ins Tierreich (Expeditions into the animal kingdom) had 153 episodes and ran until 1991.
The second stamp commemorates the 200 years of Rheinisch Friedrich-Wilhelms univerity in Bonn.

The University of Bonn (German: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the Rhein University on 18 October 1818 by Frederick William III, as the linear successor of the Kurkölnische Akademie Bonn (English: Academy of the Prince-elector of Cologne) which was founded in 1777. The University of Bonn offers a large number of undergraduate and graduate programs in a range of subjects and has 544 professors and 32,500 students. Its library holds more than five million volumes.

As of August 2018, among its notable alumni, faculty and researchers are 10 Nobel Laureates, 4 Fields Medalists, twelve Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners as well as August Kekulé, Friedrich Nietzsche, Heinrich Heine, Prince Albert, Pope Benedict XVI, Frederick III, Max Ernst, Konrad Adenauer, and Joseph Schumpeter.

The next card comes from the Ukraine. (Have I showed you this one before?). I have no idea what the writing says and as i can't read cyrillic script, I can't look it up. 

The stamps are really gorgeous. The double one on the right is about the Ukrainian Monetary Unit. The one on the left is the Freedon Square in Kharkiv. The flower is from a series about the Karpathian Biosphere Reserve.

We've just finished Holy Week here in Andalucia. It has been a week of processions in the village. The people take these processions very seriously. We keep well away so this picture was taken by a friend from the photoclub.

Our friend Dian gave us some fresh garlic from her garden. Here I am cleaning it. I will keep it in the fridge.

Did I tell you that my succulent plant was going to flower? Well, it has:

It is called an Orbea Variegata (starfish plant) also known by its former name Stapelia).

Isn't it gorgeous?

With the shops shut so many days last week, it was handy to make my own bread. I don't take much credit as i have a bread maker, but I do have a good recipe, which I alway use and the bread always turns out beautiful and yummy. (and I use filtered water)

I can't find my picture of 'coffee and cake' that would qualify me for Elizabeth and Bluebeard's T for Tuesday, so the kettle in the back ground will have to do a well a the first photo at the top of this blog.

I'm going to head off to Bluebeard and Elizabeth's (b)earthday T-Party. Remember there is a new address (https://alteredbooksandmixedmedia.blogspot.com/)

Have a lovely Tueday all,
Happy T-Day,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 19 April 2019 - Friday Smiles

Good Morning all! The picture above translates: Good Morning, remember you are special.

Let me start this Friday with my usual two postcards. The first one is from Japan, from a Chinese person who lives in Japan. I cannot figure out what we see on this card. It only says: 'Entrance'. Of what? I don't know.

 The stamps are pretty. With an ibis like bird on the right and a waterfall on the left.

And this was a sticker on the back of the card:

 The next card is from Taiwan, and comes from Amber who loves Japan. The card features a streetview in Japan. (But Amber is Chinese and lives in Taiwan)

 The stamp is lovely. It is a large water melon, which reminds me of summer.

 Well, what did I do this week? Saturday evening we had some drinks in the park with friends, and there were two bands playing. 

 This is rather a bad photo with the reflection of  the setting sun.

I must say the bands were really good.

Sunday was Palm Sunday and here in the village they take the large palm leaves out in the street.

 Monday I went to the gym, only to find that the gym was closed as it is Holy Week and most things stop for a week. There were a few other ladies from my group. so we decided we would go for a walk:

 Almond trees everywhere.

 Two of my friends.

 You can see how dry it is. It has since started to rain (and the weather is still atrocious. I heard that in the UK it is warm and sunny. I'm really pleased about that)

Here are some grasses next to some broom, which will flower soon (yellow).

When I stood outside the sports hall I saw a poster of a different activity which I have never seen: Kin-Ball!

I googled it (as you do): Kin-Ball, is a team sport created in Quebec, Canada in 1986 by Mario Demers, a physical education professor, in which the main distinctive characteristics are the large size of the ball (1.22 meters in diameter) and that the matches are played among three teams at the same time instead of traditional one-vs-one like the most of the team games. The International Kin-Ball Federation counts 3.8 million participants, primarily from Canada, the U.S., Japan, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Malaysia, China. The newest country is the UK. Kin-Ball UK formed in 2018 .

I also found a photo on the village web-site of Kin-ball being played at our sports hall : 

On Monday we went grocery shopping and then went to our weekend home and watched a DVD in the evening.

Tuesday we had a lie-in and had lunch at our favorite restaurant. There was a prayer meeting in the evening.

Wednesday we had invited our Danish friends over for lunch. She had grumbled about a lasagna she had eaten in a restaurant, that was not something to write home about. So I said she ought to taste MY lasagna. So Wednesday I made lasagna from scratch. 

Not much left (It was yummy)

I'm not in the picture as i took the photo.

Then Thursday I spend in my craft room and I made another Pocket Letter. I won't show you today as this post is already extra long. I'll call it a day (or night as it is 1 a.m.) and I will link up with Annie at A Stitch In Time and with Virginia at Rocking Your Week Friday. 

As usual a few funnies at the end.

Have a lovely weekend and a happy Easter to anyone who celebrates it.

Hugs,

Lisca