A Postcard A Day - Friday 28 February 2020 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely people,

It's been a funny old week for me. We have a certain routine to our lives as we are retired, but often break away from the routine and there is no harm in that. But this past week it caused  a bit of havoc. We normally go to our weekend home on Monday night and stay over, have lunch at the restaurant, come home, I phone my mother in Holland, we have a cup of tea and then go to the prayer meeting. Well this week I wanted to go to the market (on Tuesday) and so we didn't go to our weekend home.  I totally forgot to write and post my Tuesday blog, neither of us remembered to go to the prayer meeting and needless to say, I didn't phone my mum. She doesn't mind, and knows I will phone her the next day. But because I didn't do a blog either, she got a bit worried. Oh dear! It's what in England is known as a senior moment. In my case it was a Senior Day!

Well I haven't forgotten our Friday Smiles where I join Annie at A Stitch In Time with things that made me smile this week.

A postcard in my postbox always makes me smile. This week there was a card from the Netherlands.

It is a card from the theme park de Efteling. I remember it from my childhood. It is built like a fairy tale. And uses images similar to the Dutch illustrator Anton Pieck.

Like this:

 And this:

 The Pagoda is fairly new. I have never seen it.

 And of course there are many rides.

 This long-necked fellow has been there since the beginning.

It made me smile to be reminded of cherished childhood memories.

The next card comes from Poland, and it features one of my favorite foods: pasta! It was sent to me by Jakub, who lives just outside Warsaw with his wife and a cat named Almond. He writes that he was born on the same day as the great Polish astronomer Copernicus.

 The stamps are wonderful. The top one is about the Pieskowa Skala, (Polish for Little Dog's Rock) It is a limestone cliff in the valley of river Prądnik, 27 km north of Krakow, Poland, best known for its Renaissance castle. 
The two bottom ones feature the Centaurea L., a thistle.

It has been a very un-remarkable week.

  I did go out on Sunday though. But I will blog about that on Tuesday.

Yesterday and today I have been scrapbooking. I made several lay-outs. I certainly was inspired by Virginia, and like her I am finishing 2016!

I did this one of me eating a pasty outside a cafe in Bath as a companion

 to this one of dear hubby, which I made last year.

 Then I did these two to show the progress made on the stairwell in our house.

 You can see I like my dots and dashes.

 This piece of card from a packet of pasta is used as a background to one of the photos (top right). That kraft coloured packageing is ideal for recycling. I use lots of things like that for my scrapbooking.

This is another one that I made to make up a double page. I used the same 'planks' paper as its companion page, only a different card stock as I couldn't find something in the same colour.

All in all, apart from my little blip on Tuesday, I had a good week full of smiles. Lets share our smiles at Annie's and Virginia's. Of course, as usual, I will show you some funnies that I found on the internet (at the end).

For now I will say: Take care and...

Keep smiling!

Hugs,

Lisca

My funnies seem to be a bit drink related this week....

For you non-Brits: Wetherspoons is a chain of pubs in the UK.

A Postcard A Day - Friday 21 February 2020 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely ladies,

It's Friday already. How time flies when you enjoy yourself. I have had a lot to smile about.

Let's share all those smiles from this week. 

A postcard in my postbox always makes me smile. Here is the first 'happy mail':

 It comes from the USA and it looks like a yummy little cake. The sender has written:"Laughter is an instant vacation".
The second card comes from Russia and is a lovely black and white photo of Coco Chanel with one of her quotes:

 The stamps are lovely too:

Here's what made me smile too:

 My cactus is flowering again. Isn't it beautiful!

Here are some collages of what i have been up to this week:

Friday night with friends:

 Sunny weather on Sunday:

 Shopping on Monday

Relaxing on Tuesday:

There is no collage for Wednesday, as I had to go to town to have a new battery put in my mobile (So I couldn't take any pictures) and also went to the dentist and that is not something worthy of a photo..

I will however put some funnies at the end, like i always do. (I know that some people read my blog starting at the bottom...)

Have a lovely weekend,

Take care,

And... Keep smiling!

Lisca

PS I'm sorry some photos are sticking out of the column, but it's past midnight and I can't be bothered to resize them again. 

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 18 February 2020 - T for turtles, wine and stamps

Good morning lovely ladies,

It's a lovely day today and I'm typing this with the sun streaming through the terrace doors and windows. 

I received a beautiful card this week. It is called a Maxi card and the unusual thing is the stamp is stuck on the front of the card. I have a few of these maxi cards but this is the first one with a subject close to my heart. 

It's about 100 years women in medical practice. 

 The lady on the stamp is Constance Stone. She was born on 4 December 1856 in Hobart, Tasmania to William and Betsy Stone. The family moved to Melbourne in 1872. In 1882, Stone met Reverend David Egryn Jones, who had emigrated from England. Moved by the poverty his parish, Jones decided to study medicine, and Constance followed suit. She was forced to leave Australia to study medicine since the University of Melbourne would not admit women into the medicine course. She graduated from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and was awarded her MD from the University of Trinity College, Toronto in 1888. Jones followed her to Canada to earn his MD.

Stone went on to London where she worked in the New Hospital for Women and qualified as a licentiate of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in 1889. It was her time at the New Hospital which was her inspiration to one day found a hospital that was run 'by women, for women'.

In 1890, after she returned to Australia, she became the first woman to be registered with the Medical Board of Victoria. Her sister, Grace 'Clara' Stone followed her into medicine. Clara had been allowed to study in Australia and was one of two women who graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1891. The sisters went into private practice together and both worked at the out-patients' dispensary in La Trobe Street. (Wikipedia)

 The second card comes to me from the USA and depicts turtles (my favorite animals). It is called 'Perilous Passage' from Animal Kingdom by Charley Harper.

Charley Harper (1922 – 2007) was a Cincinnati-based American Modernist artist. He was best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters and book illustrations. Born in Frenchton, West Virginia in 1922, Harper's upbringing on his family farm influenced his work to his last days. He left his farm home to study art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and won the academy's first Stephen H. Wilder Traveling Scholarship. Also during his time at the Academy, and supposedly on the first day, Charley met fellow artist Edie Mckee, whom he would marry shortly after graduation in 1947.

In a style he called "minimal realism", Charley Harper captured the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual elements. When asked to describe his unique visual style, Charley responded:

When I look at a wildlife or nature subject, I don't see the feathers in the wings, I just count the wings. I see exciting shapes, color combinations, patterns, textures, fascinating behavior and endless possibilities for making interesting pictures. I regard the picture as an ecosystem in which all the elements are interrelated, interdependent, perfectly balanced, without trimming or unutilized parts; and herein lies the lure of painting; in a world of chaos, the picture is one small rectangle in which the artist can create an ordered universe. (Wikipedia)

Here is another example of his art:

 So what else has been happening? We have been to visit the local (Caniles, southern Spain) bodega (vinyard/winery). We want to plant some vines for ourselves and need to learn a bit more and do our research of course. 

The bodega Vilaplana is only a few kilometers from our house, but we had never been there. It is the white  house in the distance:

The almond trees are in blossom. Here we are getting closer:

Here is a photo of the house (business downstairs) from the internet as it was getting dark.

 We went there at 6:30 pm so not much time to see things by daylight, but we got a quick tour of the vineyard:

 And they showed us the process. Here is the wine they produce from the red Tempranillo grapes and red Grenach. (suitable for hot dry weather) The white grapes used are Macabeo and Jaen. 

The white wine is called 'Diez días de marzo', which means ten days in March. It is named in honour of an old irrigation right. Since hundreds of years, the poorest farms would plant vines and they would have the privilege to irrigate with pure mountain melt water (Sierra Nevada) during the first ten days of March.

 When the sun set it was time to go home.

That is it from me today. As my blog post contains some bottles of wine, I have the perfect ticket for the T-Party, hosted by Elizabeth and Bleubeard. Are you joining us?

Happy T-Day,
Hugs,
Lisca