A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 29 June 2020 - T for tiles, beer and garlic

Hello lovely ladies,

It's Tuesday again and time for the T-Party. Elizabeth and Bluebeard kindly host this link-up party with a beverage. 

But before I show you my beverage, I would like to show you a postcard. It is not one that I have received, but one that i sent. I bought it last summer when I was in Portugal. It represents the different tiles (floor tiles or wall tiles) in Portugal. But we have them here in Andalucia too. They are a legacy from the Moors, whose Islamic art is still very much visible everywhere.

I sent the card to Russia, and I got a lovely message back from this young couple, telling me how much they loved the card and that the tiles reminded them of a boardgame they had recently bought. It is called Azul, and of course I had to look it up immediately on the Internet:

Just to show you that these motifs are used everywhere here, I'm showing you a bottle top from a beer bottle of the brand Alhambra.

It is our local beer as we live in the Granada province. The can also has the above motif.

I think I have mentioned before that I have started to make kombucha. (Fermented tea). It takes about a week for the first fermentation, and now I have put the kombucha in bottles with different fruits to flavor them and now I have to wait another week until this second fermentation is complete. Then we can taste it!

 I'll let you know how we get on.

Hubby has harvested his first garlics. We now have about thirty. So I got them all lined up on the table and I put them all on a string.  

Then we hung them up in our little shed.

 The broad bean season is over, but hubby has left several plants, so we can harvest the seeds. That is another little job I did this week: Taking all the seed beans (and peas) out of their pods.

Since last week, my friend A and I go for a walk twice a week. We walk from 9 until 11 or 11:30.  Friday we found quite a lot of 'hiperico' which is hypericum, which in English is St John's Wort. It is used as an anti depressant, but I have put them in olive oil. I'll leave them in the sun for a week and the oil will turn red. Then I filter the oil and use it for burns and scuffs etc.

 Here are a few photos from yesterday's walk. 
I don't know what this yellow beauty is. Erika do you know what it is? Sorry I forgot to photograph the leaves.

This (below) is the flower from a granada tree.  (pomegranates in English).

 We walked mostly along a dry riverbed.

 (Untended) olive trees

That is it from me this Monday night. I will post this at midnight and wish you all a very happy T-Day.
Take care,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 26 June 2020 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely girls! How are you today? 

Here in Spain the State of Emergency has lifted and that means a real relaxation of the restrictions, what exactly I haven't established yet as we don't venture far from home and only go shopping once a week.

I haven't received any cards this week, so I am showing you a card I have sent. I had a whole collection of Salvador Dalí art cards. And when people indicate that they like that sort of thing, I send them one out of my collection. 
This painting is called Gala Placidia, Galatea of the Spheres, 1952.

Gala was Dalí's wife and muse. Read about their relationship and Dalí's life in this interesting article.
There is a surrealist museum in Figueres, Spain:

You can visit the museum virtually via this link: https://www.salvador-dali.org/en/museums/dali-theatre-museum-in-figueres/visita-virtual/

Now, what have I been up to? Here are my collages for the week:

 As you can see I have started my kombucha again. The glass jar in the photo was later filled with (cooled) boiled water.

 The gym on the football pitch was fun. It was an evening of sports organised by the local council. Our little group was one of many. We had our little corner of astroturf (Grass doesn't grow in these parts, so they have fake grass) and our teacher had us do an hour of non-stop aerobics. After three months of near non-activity, I was absolutely shattered!

 Sunday was Father's Day ion Europe and my hubby enjoyed Zoom calls with different off spring and their families. 

On Monday morning I went for a long walk with my friend Antonia. It was quite blustery so I had to put the straps on my hat. It is a Tilly hat. Anyone remember those? We were told one Tilly hat was eaten by an elephant and after a while it came out 'the other end' , was put through the washing machine and consequently worn for many years by its owner. I have had mine for at least 20 years, but it has never been eaten by an elephant. It still is my favorite hat. (We have one each). As this is Friday Smiles, I'll let you read the owner's manual:
https://www.villagehatshop.com/content/TilleyHatManual.pdf

On Tuesday our friends came to visit and they helped me with my still life photo for the photo club. The theme was 'journalism' and my friend had brought an antique type writer and an old camera. I have the newspaper of  the 9/11 attack in New York in 2001. (It's the Scotsman as I happened to be in the Scottish highlands on a geological field trip, out in a field centre without radio or television. Very scary as we didn't know what was going on!)

I have no fancy lighting, so I had friends holding torches and mobiles on the correct bits. Great fun. The little photo in the middle is the result. I will enter it tonight. Fingers crossed I have the dimensions right this time.

As you can see our chili peppers have not grown at all. I don't seem to be able to get them passed the seedling stage.

And now it is time to join Annie at A Stitch In Time and Virginia at Rocking Your Week Friday.

Of course I will put some funnies at the end. 
Here's wishing you a good weekend, 
keep smiling,
Hugs,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 23 June 2020 - T for breakfast, a praying mantis and a bore hole.

Hello lovely ladies, sorry I'm late to join the party but we had some important business to attend to and so everything else had to wait.

But here I am and as Bluebeard and Elizabeth are organizing their famous T-Party, I will show you our Saturday breakfast table. I had the window built at the hight of the table so I could look out onto our little patio and enjoy the flowers in the hanging baskets and window boxes.

 We had pancakes (as every Saturday) and tea. I also have a glass of grapefruit juice.

Yesterday my friend and I decided to go for an early morning walk (9 am for me is early morning). We spotted the first apricots growing on a tree. They are not ripe yet though.

We also saw wild caper bushes. Their flowers are gorgeous. 

Wikipedia says:  Capparis spinosa, the caper bush, also called Flinders rose, is a perennial plant that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and large white to pinkish-white flowers. The plant is best known for the edible flower buds (capers), used as a seasoning, and the fruit (caper berries), both of which are usually consumed pickled.

I always wear my boots when walking in the country. Not just for the ticks, but mostly for the 'pinchos', those dried sharp parts of plants that travel inside your trouser legs and scratch and pinch you. Very uncomfortable. Look what my boots looked like when I took them off!

 I'm afraid I have no postcard for you. I haven't been to the post office yet. But I can show you our first garlic! 

 And the gym on the football field. The season of our gym club is finished now, and to close the season (that was hardly a season at all because it stopped in March) the village council organized a sports event on the football grounds. We were one of many groups and we had to stand two meters apart on the astro turf (grass doesn't grow here, so they have fake grass) and we did a full hour of aerobics. I was absolutely shattered at the end of it!

 Over the weekend we witnessed the starting of the water pump of the bore hole above our land. It belongs to our friend Shaun, who lives abroad, so we and a couple of other friends look after the estate for him and one of our friends managed to get power going and the pump still worked! It had not been used for 12 years, but it works! Here is the pump sitting in the bore hole.

And here is the first water gushing out. It is still quite muddy, but it ran clear a few hours later.

We were on the highest point of the estate.  The view over the village and surrounding area is stunning. (Our house is the white building below the red stripe)

 I know in England the garden center sells pampas grass, but here it grows wild.

 Here is a little friend that visited us the other day. He sat under the table as we were having coffee on the patio.

 My kombucha did not turn out well. I had left it too long and was undrinkable, so I started again. This time I had large 10 litre glass pots. I made the sweet tea and then I filled it with (cooled) boiled water. I was able to use the scoby (culture) from the previous one and now it's a waiting game while it ferments.

That is all that has been happening here.

Happy T-Day and have a great weekend,
Take care,
Hugs,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 19 June 2020 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely people, 

Today we share (at Annie's) what made us smile this week. 

Well, my biggest smile was this week when I received a beautiful postcard from Braunschweig in Germany. It was sent to me by none other that Iris Flavia! 

It is called the Happy Rizzi House in the old quarter of Magni. This really makes me smile and I keep the card on my desk. Every time I look at it, it makes me smile.

I found some info on the Internet:

DESCRIBED AS “THE HAPPIEST HOUSE on earth,” the Happy Rizzi House (Rizzihaus) in Brunswick is a day-glo masterpiece of cartoon-inspired architecture set smack in the heart of a staid German historic neighborhood.

Standing in stark contrast to its old world surroundings, the Happy Rizzi House is the vision of New York pop artist James Rizzi (perhaps best known for designing the cover for Tom Tom Club’s 1981 debut album) and architect Konrad Kloster. Representative of Rizzi’s style, the structures are decorated in wild shapes and faces colored in bright pinks, yellows, and greens reminiscent of an 80’s music video.

The psychedelic cluster of buildings was not an instant hit with the surrounding city since the tall buildings’ cacophony of color is in direct visual opposition to both the business district on one side of it and the old world European architecture on the other. However the goofy faces with unevenly spherical eyes (which are also windows) have come to be accepted as a unique and important part of the landscape, acting as the unofficial border between the two portions of the city the site straddles. 

Unfortunately Rizzi passed away in 2011, but the Happy Rizzi House, as easily his largest piece of work, assures that his off the wall vision of the world will live on for years to come.

Here are some details:

Thank you so much Iris!

What else have I been up to? What else has made me smile? 

Here is my week:

On Friday we went out with our friends to eat pizza for the first time since the beginning of lockdown. It was lovely to get together again and the pizza was delish.

 Saturday pancakes for breakfast are always a treat.

 On Sunday hubby cleaned my desk-top computer. he does this once a year as the fans get so dusty with the almond burner and wood burner stove we have.

 I bought some pretty glasses at Lidls. I didn't really need more glasses, but I couldn't resist.
Hubby has had to use his scythe to cut the high (dry) grass. It is a fire risk in this hot climate.

 On Tuesday we went to the garden center to buy more flowers and we had lunch with our friends who happen to live near the garden center.

 The plants we bought were not in the best condition. I had 5 geraniums and I spent the afternoon thinning them out. Big smile!

Yesterday hubby hung the first jigsaw on the wall of our stairwell. I'm really pleased. 

The puzzle image is by artist Colin Thompson and is called The Bizarre Book shop 2. 

And here is a detail:

That was my week.

I hope you have had a good week too with lots of smiles. 

As usual I will leave you with some funnies at the end, but for now I will say goodbye, and have a great weekend!

Hugs,

Lisca

(In the UK, if you get fined for speeding four times, you lose your license)