A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 28 April 2020 - T for bakers, kings and art.

Hello lovely ladies! 

It's T-Day today and we are all invited to the T-Party by hosts Elizabeth and Bleubeard. Just join us with a blogpost with a beverage (or even a reference to a beverage). 

My qualifier is the image above. It is an image that I have coloured in an app called Happy Colour. I find it so relaxing as I can choose the image, there is no time limit or points to achieve. 

Let me show you a postcard that arrived last week. In most countries the postal system is disrupted and certain routes are suspended, but a few card come through. So far, during the lockdown,  I have received cards from the Netherlands and Germany . This one is from the Netherlands.

It shows a warehouse. The doors in the middle on each floor are used to load materials by ways of a winch right at the top of the building.

I immediately recognized the Alkmaar cheese carriers. Alkmaar is a town in the Netherlands, north of Amsterdam, where there is still a traditional cheese market. (The link tells you all about the cheese market and has a short video as well).

The postcard image is from 1954 and the words written above the shop tell me that it was an ironmonger in those days.

The house still exists, but windows have been put in the loading bays:

It is called Het huis met de schopjes´´(the house with the paddles) because it shows 3 'schopjes'. These are the paddles that bakers use to get their wares in and out of the oven. The building used to be a baker.

The shop was on the ground floor and the bakery was on the first floor and above that, the place where they kept the ingredients such as flour. Everything got hoisted into the building through the middle 'windows'. The family lived at the back of the building.

Here is another contemporary photo. The shop front has a sort of shelter so that people could buy bread and cakes and not get wet.

Below is an old painting of the same house by Johannes Franciscus Spohler (1853 1923). There is an identical house next door, but that doesn't exist anymore. In the distance you can see the tower of the weigh house, where they weigh the cheeses.

I am writing this post on Monday 27th of April and in the Netherlands it is King's Day, the birthday of King Willem Alexander.  It usually is an enormous party celebrated all over the country. People dressed in orange etc. But now with the confinements there will be no street parties. 

But the king did appear for a photo opportunity this morning with his wife Maxima and his 3 daughters:

And here he is on the stamp (minus the beard)

Do I dare mention the virus? We are doing ok here. For me it's no hardship to stay at home. But for families with children it must be a nightmare. From yesterday (Monday) in Spain, the children under the age of 13 are allowed outside for max an hour and only accompanied by an adult. But at least they can play and get some fresh air and run about. 

My grandson in Italy, who is 5, is a very active kiddy. His parents have bought him a trampoline and I watched some little clips of him bouncing away! (I don't think in Italy they are allowed out yet though).

Governments have been trying to get recommendations across to the public in all sorts of ways. Here in the village there is a police car with a loudspeaker going through the streets shouting out instructions and new rules. But I found on the internet what the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Informational Security have done to inform the public. Have a look, I think it's beautiful:

Ukrainian creative agency Looma recently came up with a creative way of informing people on how to stay safe during the corona-virus pandemic. They gave 9 famous art pieces quarantine makeovers and paired them with important PSA’s as part of the global #FlattenTheCurve campaign and you don’t need to be an art lover to appreciate them.

“We can say that the ability to preserve the quarantine – is a kind of art. This is how we came up with idea of “Art of Quarantine” campaign, launched in association with Ministry of Culture and Informational Security of Ukraine,” writes Looma. “Classic art pieces get a new look and teach how to stop the spread of COVID-19 and stay safe.”

That's all from me the T-Day. 

Wishing you all a happy T-Day,

Stay safe and stay healthy,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 24 April 2020 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely people, how are you all coping? Things seem to be developing in the right direction, but not fast enough for my taste! How about our summer holiday? (All booked and paid for). I suppose many of you will have the same worries or worse. But here we are to celebrate the good things this week and the silver lining on this great big C-cloud.

Of course my smiles come from my postcards. I received another 4 this week. All from Germany, which is one of the countries we still are able to receive mail from. The card I am going to show you arrived before the spread of the virus. It comes from Indonesia. It shows a photo of the wedding of Kahiyang Ayu, the only daughter of President Jaka Widodo, with  Bobby Afif Nasution.

The card was sent to me by Ririn, and he/she tels me the couple was photographed at the Borobudur Buddhist temple. Bobby is wearing a traditional batik shirt. (Batik is an Indonesian wax-resist dyeing technique.)

They wed on the 8th of November 2017. It was televised and watched by millions of  people. “I give the hand of my daughter Kahiyang Ayu in marriage to Muhammad Bobby Afif Nasution, son of the late Erwin Nasution, with a dowry of prayer clothes and 80 grams of gold,” Widodo said in the ceremony,"

Here are two more photos of the happy couple:

The stamps on the card are beautiful:

The one on the right is from a series of stamps about the carnaval. 

 And the stamp on my card represents the Batam Carnival. (Batam is an island across the water from Singapore.) I found a photo of the carneval last December:

The stamp on the left (which is turned on its side) is from a series of headgear from 34 provinces. You'l find 'my' stamp in the right hand column. 

 It is a headdress from Sulawesi Tengah, which is Central Sulawesi, (what we used to call Celebes).
Here is a similar headdress in a different colour:

How was your week? I will show you the collages I made of my week.

I made soup from half a butternut squash that I had lying about. I also love doing this 'painting by numbers' (called Happy Colour) and you can see the pretty flower I coloured.

As you can see my jigsaw puzzle is coming on.

The weather is still bad.

On Tuesday I had to go to the hospital for my yearly mammogram. The roads were empty, and the hospital was very quiet and relaxed. There have been only 5 confirmed cases of the virus (and they were from outside the area). Because of that, our area will be one of the first to start 'normalizing' slowly.

Hubby has finished the cave ceilings. We have a cave house next door to our house and the ceilings were crumbling dangerously after the house had got damp. So now hubby has made arched ceilings in all the rooms, and this was the last one.

The first sunny day, and of course I let the washing machine do some work.

I coloured a particularly beautiful image that day. 
The book I finished was OK but it felt like a young adult sort of book, although it was not advertised as such. The title 'Unplanned' refers to pregnancy as the protagonist Kennedy gets involved with a pro-life charity.

Yes, I know, there are only 5 collages. I didn't do one every day. On Monday and Thursday, I didn't take any photos as I just spent the day indoors doing mundane things. There was nothing to report, so to speak.

Here is a little fun game that our d-i-l sent us. They are all names of countries. For example number 10 shows Philip Schofield and some pines, that would be  the Philipines. Get it? Answers next week.

Of course I will give you a few funnies at the end (apologies for the F word).

That is it from me today. I'm going to link up with Annie at A Stitch In Time and with Virginia at Rocking Your Week Friday.

Have a lovely weekend,
Stay safe,
Hugs,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 21 April 2020 - T for a forest fairy and a slut, sorry: slutsk

Hello lovely people,

Here we are again at Elizabeth and Bluebeard's T-Party. I need a beverage or a drink related item to qualify, so what about this one?

I do hope you are all well and coping with whatever restrictions your government has issued. We in Spain are still on a strict lockdown, although I have heard that some factories have been able to re-open last week. 

Today, Tuesday, I'm having to go to the hospital in town for a mammogram. I phoned them up and they said my appointment can go ahead as planned. I'll let you know how that went. Normally my hubby would drive me, but only one person is allowed to travel by car, so I will have to drive myself. (Good practice as the roads are empty).

Let me show you a postcard from Belarus:

It is entitled Zazowka and is drawn by the artist Eugene Kot.

It's a beautiful drawing and I just had to find out more about it. Luckily the artist has a website and this is what I found:

Near the village of Guby in Vileyka district, in the forest lived demonic creature called Zazowka. She had the appearance of an unspeakably beautiful young girl with thick hair so long that she doesn’t need any clothes. Many lads are charmed by her. If she appears in front of some person he follows her as if charmed. She calls him by name in a sweet voice and laughs teasingly. Now appearing, now disappearing, she lures the man deep into the forest by the seductive movements of her slender body. Now and then as she moves she puts her hair aside to reveal the most intimate parts. On luring her chosen one to the heart of the forest she caresses him as no other woman does. Few men come back from the Zazowka, while some men perish from her insatiable love. Those who manage to come back to their wives later go to the forest again never to come back. Not everyone is entertained twice by the Zazowka. When she rejects them they commit suicide. These distraught men can be often found hanged in the forest.

There was a beautiful stamp on the card. It took me a while to figure out what the stamp is about as I can't read the Cyrillic alphabet. But it is about the town  Slutsk. 
Slutsk is a city in Belarus, located on the Sluch River 105 km (65 mi) south of Minsk. As of 2010 its population is of 61,400. (Wikipedia)

All the info below is from the website Belarus24.

Bottom right on the stamp: Museum of Local Lore,
In the middle of the last century the Slutsk Museum of Local Lore was opened. The exposition of the museum tells about the formation of the Slutsk Principality, the first gymnasium on the territory of the country, the life of the citizens, the Great Patriotic War and modern Slutsk. The museum’s collection numbers more than 31 thousand items, including archaeological finds, fragments of Slutsk belts, documents and many other things.

 top right:

Cathedral of St. Archangel Michael in Slutsk

According to various historical data, there were about 20 churches in Slutsk, and Slutsk churches were first mentioned in the year 1392  (St. Michael’s Church). It is also known as Church of the Archangel Gabriel, a "domestic" church, attached to St. Michael’s church, was situated next to the St. Michael’s temple in the churchyard. In wintertime, it was used as a warm temple, since St. Michael’s church itself was not heated at the time. After the revolution, the church was used for housekeeping needs and for living. Divine services were resumed only in 1941. After difficult-for -faith decades in the twentieth century, when the temple of Michael the Archangel remained the only in the city, the church was granted the status of a cathedral and became the center of the Slutsk deanery. The building of the St. Michael’s Church is protected by the state. This is a monument of architecture of the XVIII-XIX centuries of national significance.

Middle:

Monument to Sophia Slutskaya

Sophia Slutskaya is the last of the famous Olelkovich family. (She married a Radziwill. Read all about her here)

In 1984, the Belarusian Church canonized her, and at the end of the 20th century a monument to Sophia was installed in the square on the Bogdanovich Street. A bronze figure.

Sophia asks to stop and think to yourself for a moment. Behind the figure of Sophia you can see three-leafed arch that symbolizes the Christian church.

Top Left: 

Chapel of St. Barbara

In the eighteenth century the most beautiful Barbarian church was situated in this place. But it suffered a cruel fate: first there was a fire, after it was in a dilapidated state, then it was rebuilt in the style of folk architecture and baroque, but in 1812 it was ransacked by the French, and in Soviet times it was burnt down. In the old place in 1996, it was decided to build a small chapel in honor of St. Barbara.

I have not been able to find out what the building Bottom left is.

I have not received any postcards this week, but I have been occupying myself with all sorts of useless activities. One of them is my jigsaw puzzle. I find it relaxing to do. I'm doing this one:

And this is how far I got.

I also like this app on my iPad called Happy Colour. It is 'painting' by numbers and I like it a lot. I do one a day.

I had just finished the one top left and I clicked on it to show you. Up popped this empty one and it wanted me to start all over again. No thank you.

Hubby has been gardening in our plot and came home with our first broad bean!

The banana is there to show you the size. I have since used it to make banana overnight oats for our breakfast. Such is the destiny of a left over banana.

So that evening we had broad beans for supper:

One of the plus sides of this whole quarantaine thing is that churches are doing online services. This past Sunday we enjoyed watching three services of churches we had either belonged to or that our children are involved in.

Sorry, I'm in my dressing gown again. I'm afraid I shall have to get out of that habit soon. But before 12 noon, this is what I wear.
One last image:

It's our scrambled egg on toast breakfast. (Home made bread again). Feel free to join me for breakfast.

I shall leave it at that. I wish you all health and patience as this situation continues. Personally I don't know anyone who has got or has had the virus. What about you?

 I hope you are all safe and staying home. 

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home.

Hugs (virtual of course)

Lisca

PS Here is the link to the fish recipe for Kate Yetter.