A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 28 June 2022 - T for stars

 Hello lovely ladies, 

Wow, does that week fly by! It's Monday night already and I have two postcards for you today. (I have such a large pile of cards to get through).

The first card comes to me from the UK, sent by Debs, who lives in Eastbourne and has 4 cats.

The card is entitled: 'A red rose at Saturn's North pole' The info reads: "In 2012, Cassini captured a stunning series of false-color images of Saturn's North pole, using spectral filters sensitive to the near-infrared light. The red areas show low-altitude clouds, while the green areas show clouds higher in the atmosphere."

The stamp is a British Country Definitive stamp. This beautiful new issue for 2021 features an image of an English oak sculpture by David Dathan. The stamp is designed by Sedley Pace and photographed by Chris Ridley.

My second card is called: 'R136 in the Tarantula Nebula'.

The information reads: "This image shows the inner region of the tarantula Nebula, home to the star cluster R136 (The sparkling blue mass near the center). The stars in R136 were formed roughly two million years ago, and their ultraviolet radiation makes the entire system glow."

The stamps are gorgeous but because of the rubber cancellation stamp, they are not that clearly visible. 

The largest is about women's rowing:

These stamps celebrate women’s rowing, a graceful but demanding sport in which American women have excelled, including in the Olympics. The artwork, which covers the entire pane, is a stylized illustration of five eight-person rowing teams competing or practicing. Four stamp designs are featured in a pane of 20 stamps arranged as five staggered rows of four. Nancy Stahl designed and illustrated the stamps and pane. Ethel Kessler was the art director.

Then there is a stamp from the Otters in the Snow series:

The small stamp with the barn is especially for postcards. This particular one features a gambrel-roofed barn in summer. Here is the complete series:

Blogger is not putting my photos in the right order and I haven't got time to manually move them about so I will show them in random order. 

This little friend crawled out of one of my shoes in my closet. I don't kill spiders, so I let him do his thing and the next day he was nowhere to be seen.

This Schulz cartoon was supposed to be last. It's not a funny as it is very true.

We've had visitors from the UK (A friend from work with her husband). We took them to see the badlands in the Geoparque. Here is hubby with the lady from the tourist information, who spoke good English and was very helpful:

On a different day we went to the top of a small mount called Jabalcon. We see it from our window but we had never been on top. My header photo was taken from the top, but not by me. It was taken by a member of the photoclub and I have it as header with his permission.

We drove up in the car. Yes there was a very narrow, windy road. We were so afraid that we would meet another vehicle as there were no passing places. Quite hairy!

There is a lovely view over the reservoir/lake called Negratin. It really is that turquoise colour!

Some guys were setting up their hang gliders. We didn't actually see them fly.

On the last night we had a BBQ on our little patio. Local meat from the butcher and a home made salad. My drink is Tinto de Verano, a red wine with lemonade I think. I buy it already prepared and it is very refreshing in summer and very low in alcohol.

The posh salt and pepper dispensers were a gift from my sister (we would never buy an electric pepper mill ourselves)

Hubby is desperately trying to gain some weight. Of course ice cream is just the ticket!

Often the local restaurants serve dishes to share. This is a charcutier platter. It had delicious paté too. My friend's glass of wine is visible and I think this might be my second beverage for Elizabeth and Bleubeard's T-Party.

I think I'll leave it at this. On Tuesday (T-Day), we will be in Granada all day for hubby's hospital appointments. He is seeing the surgeon and the anesthetist. Hopefully we will get a date for the operation. 

Because of this I won't be doing any visiting until late.

I wish everyone a lovely week and a happy T-Day,

keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 24 June 2022 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely ladies, how are you all?

Today we are counting our blessings and remember the smiles of the week.

A postcard in my mailbox always makes me smile and I have a sweet little card for you today:

It comes to me from Germany. From Astrid who lives in Trier. She tells me that Trier in Germany's oldest town as it dates back to Roman times.

Viel Glück means literally much luck.(We would say: Good Luck!)

The stamp is spectacular:

A brand new David Bowie stamp! What's not to like!

There is not much to report from the K household. We are getting as much bio fuel as we can get as prices will go through the roof this winter, so we've made another trip to Zujar to get a trailer load of almond shells, which we burn in our stove.

First we have to weigh car plus trailer on the weigh bridge:

Then we follow the man into the huge warehouse where almond shells are piled up to the ceiling:

The guys fill the sacks:

The other guy sews them closed with a hand sewing device:

They get loaded onto the trailer:

I think we got 10 sacks. We paid 14 cents per kilo as we had the extra fine, which are the most expensive ones. One sack will last us two days of heating, and it will have cost us 4,50 Eur for one sack. I don't know how that compares with other means of heating. I know that wood is dearer. When we lived upstairs, we used the woodburner and that worked out more. 

I'm keeping this short as we are having visitors from the UK. I will show photos next time. 

Now it's time to join Annie at A Stitch In Time and the other smiling ladies.

Before I go of course there are some funnies. I apologise if there are some you have seen before. I am doing this in a hurry.

Have a great weekend,

and remember:

Keep smiling!

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 21 June 2022 - T for pizza, precious stones and bees

 Hello lovely ladies, How are you all? I hope you have had a good weekend and are now ready to join the ladies of the T-gang. Elizabeth and Bluebeard are hosting the T-Party and all you have to do is share a beverage with us. I have several to share with you but first let me show you my postcards for today:

This first one comes to me from the Czech republic. Kristina sent me these beautiful stones. There is an amethyst and two agates. They were found in Novopacko, the eastern gate of the Cesky raj geopark. I looked it up and it is in the north of the country.

Kristina is a vet and she has added a sticker of a dog and a round postage stamp.

I found out that 'Postovni urad' means 'post office' and it is a sign from 1919. 

Here is another postcard with precious stones:

These are called Petoskey Stones (Hexagonaria percarinata). Really they aren't precious stones. Petoskey stones were once living coral that existed some 350 million years ago! Over time the coral fossilized and glaciers scattered the stones along Lake Michigan near Petoskey and across Michigan to the Lake Huron shoreline.

Petoskey stones are grey and rough when found, but when polished the beautiful rich coral pattern emerges. Polished Petoskey stones have a smooth surface and are highly prized gifts and jewelry.

The stone visible behind the poinsettia stamp is a polished Petoskey stone.

Here is an image (from Wikipedia) of unpolished Petoskey stones:

And by contrast this is polished stone:

Beautiful isn't it?

Our area has a Geopark too. We actually live in between a national park and the geopark. They have only recently starting advertising these beauties. My blog friend Kate recently saw the geopark advertised on the local buses, and she sent me these photos. 

What you see are badlands and a bit of the lake (a reservoir, that is such a beautiful turquoise color!). It's not far from us and when we have visitors, we always take them to see the lake and the badlands.

Our village is Caniles and it is mentioned on the bus:

We are doing well this week. I still have a stinking cold with a bit of herpes on my lip, but that is now healing. Hubby is feeling okay and has even put on 1.7 kilo in one week! Hurray! 

Mind you this is all due to the lovely ice cream our friends serve in their shop:

We went out to eat pizza with our friends on Saturday. The first time we have been out in a long time.

Hubby doesn't tolerate bread, so he can't eat pizza. But they were happy to make him some ham, egg and chips (which were not on the menu I might add).

Here you can see our drinks. I had a red wine. Our friends drink beer and hubby has a drink called Aquarius, which is one of those electrolyte drinks for sports people. He likes that, so that is ok. Also on the table you can see the remnants of the tapas, which are little snacks served free with every drink.

That is it from me today. Lastly I have something for all you coffee drinkers out there:

And the next one is for Erika:

Well done Morgan! (We like Morgan Freeman, don't we!)

Well lovely people, have a good week and wishing you all

Happy T-Day

Hugs,

Lisca