Tuesday 29 March 2022

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 29 March 2022 - T for stars and murals

 Hello lovely girls!

It's T-Party time! Come and join us at the T-Party hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard. Post something with a drink or drink reference in it and we'll have a wonderful time.

Today I have two postcards to show you. Both about stars. The first one comes from the USA and was sent to me by Katie back in January:

It features Plate XXXII from The heavens: an illustrated handbook of popular astronomy, by Amédée Guillemin. Wikipedia says this about him:

Amédée Guillemin (born 5 July 1826 in Pierre-de-Bresse, died 2 January 1893 in Pierre-de-Bresse, France) was a French science writer and a journalist.

Guillemin started his studies at Beaune college before taking his final degree in Paris. From 1850 to 1860[1] he taught mathematics in a private school while writing articles for the Liberal press criticizing the Second French Empire. In 1860, he moved to Chambéry where he became a junior deputy editor of the weekly political magazine La Savoie. After the annexation of Savoy by the French empire, he returned to Paris where he became the science editor of l’Avenir national (The Nation's Future).

Guillemin presently started writing books of physics and astronomy which became very popular. He wrote "The Sky" which was translated into many languages. His major work, "The Physical World", consisted of five large volumes. His publisher, Hachette, encouraged him to write a series of booklets about astronomy and physics under the title "Small popular encyclopaedia", a scientifically sound but accessible collection about sciences and their applications. French astronomer Jacques Crovisier from the Observatoire de Paris suggests he may have been a source of inspiration for Jules Verne's 1865 novel, From the Earth to the Moon.


One of his quotes:



And a photo of him:


The stamps are lovely. There is the Tiffany Lamp stamp and the Silver Coffeepot. This could be my ticket to the T-Party!


On the right a mystery Forever stamp issued in 2021. It's a Forever stamp  that puts your sleuthing skills to the test.

The stamp boasts bright colors and interesting shapes that when placed together spell out a mystery message.


Spoiler alert, the message reads: “More than meets the eye!”

The one next to that with the mythical raven is a 2021 stamp design by artist Rico Lanaat Worl.



Merging traditional artwork with modern design touches, this stamp depicts one of many stories about Raven, a figure of great significance to the Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast. Among the cultures of the region, Raven plays an essential role in many traditional tales, including stories about the creation of the world. Inspired by the traditional story of Raven setting free the sun, the moon and the stars, Tlingit/Athabascan artist Rico Worl depicts Raven just as he escapes from his human family and begins to transform back into his bird form.

Now for my second card:

This one came from Germany, also back in January. It features the "visible heavens from July 22nd to October 31st". (No other information)
The stamp is the digital stamp with a Hamburg underground station on it. I have featured it before in one of my blogs.

Now, what can I tell you about my life...
I remember I promised to show you some more murals from my trip:
The next one depicts women's work in the field. There was an older lady who remembered doing this activity (I can't remember what it is called... is it a threshing floor?)

Below is a 'ludoteca'.

ludoteca (from the Latin ludus , « game », « toy » and from the Greek word teke «box», «place where something is kept») is a space where some type of activity is carried out for children using games and toys , especially in early childhood education , in order to stimulate physical and mental development and solidarity with other people. They originated, as a specific pedagogical space, from the 1960s . Its main objective was to help families with children with difficulties; later its objectives were expanded by offering various services.

The first toy libraries were the Toy Loan in the US . founded in 1934 and Lekotek in Sweden in 1963 . Starting in the 1960s , UNESCO founded several toy libraries in prisons , schools and community centers, and in Latin American countries .


I expect these two were on the outside of a gym...

The mural below makes fun of Don Quijote (from the book by Cervantes)

The mural below features Artemisia Gentileschi playing the lute.

Artemisia Gentileschi was an Italian Baroque painter. Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished seventeenth-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing professional work by the age of fifteen.
The mural is inspired by her self portrait:
Learn more about this painting here.
I love her work, not just because it is beautiful, but also because she was a feminist.
  • Gentileschi subverted traditional depictions of the female protagonists of biblical and mythological stories presenting them as self-motivated heroines capable of making their own decisions rather than passive objects of the male gaze. In doing so she presented them in an entirely new way and this allowed them to possess a power that had been denied them by other artists.
  • The artist's teenage experience of sexual assault affected much of her work and themes of abuse of authority, rape, and violence permeate many of her paintings. It is likely that painting these subjects allowed her to process the trauma of her assault and to seek revenge and redress through her artworks.

Washing clothes at the river, before there were wash houses:
Below a depiction of nature, painted on the back of a school.
And being in Andalucía, there had to be a painting of a flamenco dancer: 



I hope you enjoyed seeing the murals.

That is it from me today.

Happy T-Day and take care.

Hugs,

Lisca



Friday 25 March 2022

A Postcard A Day - Friday 25 March 2022 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely ladies,

This week has gone real fast and already it is Thursday night. Let me find you a nice postcard that I received recently:

It's one of those old British Railways travel posters.

High Force is a waterfall on the River Tees, near Middleton-in-TeesdaleTeesdaleEngland. The waterfall is within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and the European Geopark. 

This is what it looks like now:

The whole of the River Tees plunges 70 feet (21 m)[2] over a precipice (an almost vertical cliff edge) in two stages. After heavy rainfall the river will also flow over the usually dry right hand side channel, creating two falls. 

Very occasionally the river level will be high enough to flow over the central section of rock; the last recorded time this happened was in December 2015 after Storm Desmond. In harsh winters the falls have been known to freeze, creating cathedral-like ice formations.

Access to the northern bank is via a private footpath on the Raby estate for which a fee is charged. The southern bank can be reached free of charge via the Pennine Way public footpath which crosses the Moor House-Upper Teesdale National Nature Reserve.

The stamp is lovely. It's one of eight stamps to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's 70-year reign
celebrating the Queen's dedication to service have been issued to mark her Platinum Jubilee.
  • A 1966 photo from a visit to St Vincent on a tour of the West Indies
Our week has not been the most uplifting, but we tried to make the most of it and stay positive. The constant fog and rain doesn't help. Last week we had Sahara sand everywhere and hubby, who is not well, has made a start to clean surfaces and terraces with his power washer. The poor thing couldn't cope (the power washer)and packed up. On Friday he managed to repair it again. He has to take it very easy and sleeps/rests a lot. From Saturday he has to follow a low residue diet, so I made him some fish and chips. The last he can have for a while. The weather is cold and miserable and I have been working on my jigsaw puzzle. 
The cat in the picture is our friends' cat. It is the sweetest little kitten that chose their house as her home. The kitty would come to their garden every day  and spend time with them. They didn't feed it, but it became clear that no-one else was feeding it and in the end they relented. They named her Cocktail because she has a broken tail.

On Saturday hubby tried to wash some of the orange sand off the walls (in between showers). I had to dry my washing inside. My sister is visiting my mum in Holland at the moment, so I could talk to her via FaceTime. Great!
I cooked a potato tortilla. Hubby is only allowed carrots as vegetables, but I can have broccoli (and wine for that matter).

Thank goodness hubby is allowed eggs. We have plenty of those as our chickens are laying very enthusiastically (5 eggs a day).
The washing is still not dry.
For our Sunday lunch I had some pork shank (bought ready cooked) and I roasted some potatoes in the oven.
Riverbeds in this part of the world are dry and are used as roads. Not now. Hubby has to drive through the river to get to his parcel of land. And it will get worse I expect.
Usually I water my plants and succulents on Sunday, but I hadn't gotten round to it, so I did it on Monday. Hubby continues to do a little cleaning here and there. He is a man that likes his food and the diet is depressing him. He has to keep this up at least until the end of his treatment, which could be a long time.
On Monday evening the glazier came to put the glass in the windows and doors that hubby has placed in the cave next door (which he is renovating).
Tuesday I popped to the market to buy a bunch of flowers for myself (from my husband, but I told him to stay in bed as it was going to be a strenuous day for him). I met this man and his donkey. I didn't actually take this picture but a friend of mine did. 
Then we drove all the way to Granada again. To the big teaching hospital for hubby's radiology simulation. We also spoke to the consultant and she said he would have to have 5 weeks of radiation and oral chemo combined. That was more than we had expected and it was a bit of a disappointment. But we are so glad that we are getting good health care here and that is it free. 
Wednesday was my birthday. A bit of a subdued affair this year. Neither of us felt like celebrating, and with hubby's diet, there was no sense in going out for a meal. I  cooked chicken legs, made some chips in the air fryer and we had green beans with that. I also opened a bottle of Cava (bubbly) which I had to drink on my own. In the afternoon my friend Antonia and her daughter Isa came and brought this huge fuchsia! A beauty! After they had gone our Danish neighbors  visited and we had a good old catch-up. 
That is it from me. I know you are waiting for the funnies at the end. I don't have many this week.  But I do have some lame cow jokes. (Please forgive me)

Have a lovely weekend and I hope you have better weather than we have.

Take care,

Hugs,

Lisca