APostcard A Day - Friday 28 April 2023 - Friday Smiles

 Good morning lovely ladies,

I hope you have had a lovely week, full of smiles. I have. I've been quite busy since last Friday. 

But let me show you my postcard for today. We're going 'cute' today. I found this little cutie at the bottom of the pile and indeed it was sent in October last year. Here it is:

It features a cute raccoon. People in the US will probably tell me that raccoons are not cute at all, but I've never seen a real one so in this picture it seems cute.

The world-wide organisation called Postcrossing that I belong to is almost completely online, but sometimes people organise local meet-ups in person. This card is from one of these meet-ups. It comes from Bielefeld in Germany and all those present have signed/stamped the card with their usernames:

The stamp is the German digital stamp that celebrates Postcrossing:

So how about the smiles of this week? 

What was my week like? On Friday I picked up my car after they had sorted my air conditioning. The price was a bit of a shock but I won't mention it here as that was not a smile. But that evening I went to dancing classes with John and Brenda and a drink at the bar afterwards. The weather is really warm now so the cold beers are very welcome. 

Saturday I could have a lie-in. No gym, no painter or cleaner or anyone bothering me early, so that was bliss. 

I 'pottered' around the house and really had a restful day. In the evening I watched season 3 of Shetland. Up until now the seasons only had two episodes, but this one had 6! So I too have now experienced binge watching.

Sunday I had to get up early as the coach leaving for the mountains left at 7. I have written about my mountain hike on Tuesday. But here is a photo of me and my friends at the beginning of the hike:

The weather was rather hot and the path quite strenuous but we had a really lovely time. 

Monday is my shopping day. I went to the farm shop in town to buy cat food and corn and feed for the chickens, as well as bedding (saw dust type) for the chickens. I had cleaned out a part of the chicken run and needed clean bedding.

I had ordered a collapsable jigsaw puzzle table a while back and on Tuesday I got a message saying it had arrived at the local petrol station. So I went to collect it and to my surprise it contained this:

Two children's T-shirts! I was so disappointed and sent the company a message. They came back with apologies and an offer of 10% discount. What!? Obviously if they no longer have the product in stock, then I want my money back. Anyway, I'll let you know how this ends.

Also Tuesday was the day that my friends Kim and Andy come. I cooked the salmon recipe from Hello Fresh. 

Andy bless him, then spent the rest of the day assembling the Ikea furniture, which comes flat-packed. He is a real treasure.

The other cabinet is at the moment under a plastic sheet as the painter has not finished yet. (Later today hopefully I can put everything back in place).

Tuesday was also my lodger's birthday. (he was 32!) but as he was working that day, he celebrated it on Wednesday. His girlfriend wanted to bake a special cake. As she has hasn't much experience in baking cakes, I promised I'd help her. So we had a fun evening baking a cake with blueberries and lemon icing. 

The icing was a bit runny, so we decided to call it a day and leave the icing for the next day. 

So I got a bottle of Amaretto out and we had a little tipple:

This lovely girl is Dutch so we could chat away in our own language.

What is that written on your T-Shirt?

"Mo(re) money, mo(re) problems".

That was my week. Not many photos this week as I'm desperate for a new phone. This one is old (iPhone 6) and not taking good photos anymore. I hope to have a new one next week.(Watch this space).

As per usual, I will attempt some funnies at the end.

Have a great weekend (a Bank Holiday weekend in many European countries, Spain included),

Keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Tuesday 25 April 2023 - T for

Hello lovely ladies,

How are you today?  It's time for Elizabeth and Bleubeard's T-Party called T for Tuesday. It involves showing a drink or a drink reference. I have one right here. It is a stamp on one of my cards. (You'll see it later).

Here is the card:

It shows the Metate and West Ruin in Aztec, New Mexico.

The description reads: "Ruin had from 350 to 400 rooms and stood three stories high in some places. As many as 200 to 300 persons may have lived there at one time. The pueblo was built between A.D.1106 and 1124 and occupied by people of Chacoan affinities. It was remodeled between A.D. 1225 and 1240 and inhabited by a people akin to the Mesa Verdeans."

Aztec is a misnomer—the Ancestral Puebloan town has no known associations with the prehistoric Aztecs of Central Mexico. Early Anglo settlers, who knew little of American prehistory, first named the ruins and the town drew its name from the ruins.

Unfortunately I can't read the text, the image is low resolution, but at least you can see the lay-out.

I found some info and photos on the Southwest Anthropology and Archaeology Pages  website. 

This is a portion of the long north wall of West Ruin. (Photo above).

Several bands of green sandstone are a unique feature at Aztec Ruins.

The 'great Kiva' of the West Ruin has been reconstructed. (Wikipedia says: "kiva" means a large room that is circular and often  underground, and used for spiritual ceremonies.)

It has a beautiful roof:

The stamps are very pretty:

The two stamps on the left are from a series of forever stamp issued on 24th of January 2021.  

They feature barns in the different seasons.

The right hand stamp is my entry for the T-Party. It is from a series of Forever stamps about coffee.

I can't find when they were issued but  artist Terry Allen created each digital illustration with the style of 1920s and 1930s advertising posters in mind, capturing the inviting atmosphere of an early 20th-century café.

 I've been on a mountain hike this past weekend.  The local council had organized a coach to take us (a large group of 50 people from our village and surroundings) to the starting point in Moclín, a village north-east of Granada (about an hour and something by road).

This is the village and its old fortress. Dating from the Nasrid period, it was built in the mid-14th century as a lookout post on the border line that separated the warring kingdoms of Granada and Castilla. In 1486 it was conquered by the Catholic kings, who continued to use it. Part of the wall and the keep are currently preserved.

The walk/hike was about 9 km and was categorized as medium but I found it very strenuous.

We started down the left descent. (Which did mean we had the whole right hand yellow line climbing up!) 

Then there was the bit along the river:

It had a lovely walkway.

We came to a rest area where the Corcuela Fountain is located. This fountain is especially well-known because a spiral channel has been drawn at its base through which the water flows from the fountain pipe to the drain.

I got this photo from the internet as my photos just had too many people in it.

We passed over two suspension bridges. 

This is the largest one and it wobbles! Here you see me (front in line with the mauve shirt) braving the bridge.

Then we had a long slog uphill again (on the right of the map), which was tough. I must say I struggled and arrived as one of the last ones. But hey! I got there!

Finally one of me and my friend Loli:

That is it from me today.

Happy T-Day and Keep smiling!

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 21 April 2023 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely girls,

If you're anything like me, you'll be longing for warmer weather. So the card I am showing you today oozes summer. 

It looks like it could be in Greece, but your guess is as good as mine. It's not specified on the card. But it makes me smile.

 It comes to me from Austria, in an envelope with a lot of lovely stamps on it.

Now those stamps are really lovely. (sorry bad scan)

The yellow stamp features a traditional headdress, that I wrote about on the 7th of March. 

It is called the Lake Constance Radhaube, a wheel-shaped bonnet.

The blue stamp features an Astrachan Cap (Seewinkel, Burgenland) (Austria 2020) as you can see in the photo below. The image is from Etsy so I don't know who to tribute it to.

The other two stamps are heraldic signs.

I'm having difficulty importing photos into my post, so I'm having to jump through a few hoops and boot up my old PC.

I can't get them to move so you're getting photos in the wrong order today.

There are lots of things that have made me smile this week.

My house has been a mess as it is being painted on the inside. (But it will be nice and white again, so smiles galore)

The tv has come off the wall again and my new sofa has disappeared under the plastic.

On Tuesday my friends and I drove to Murcia on Tuesday to visit the Swedish furniture store Ikea. Our nearest one is 200 km away so it was a whole day out. I needed lots of storage space so I towed a trailer. 

Amongst other things I got some fun cushions for my sofa (big smile):

I think a plain sofa needs something to 'pop'.

And a side board for the lounge to put under the TV:

This furniture comes flat-packed and Andy has assembled this one for me.

The blue film is there just to protect the glossy surface. It got stripped off.

Let me see if I can take a photo (It's getting dark):

No. it's not very good, but you get the gist.

I have bought three other cabinets and side boards but they will get assembled over time.

What else has happened this week? My first Hello Fresh box has arrived (another big smile): 

Have you got Hello Fresh where you live? My cousin has it in Holland and a friend I know has it in the UK. It's a meal plan where they send you a box with ingredients for meals of your choice. You have to prepare the meals yourself with clear instructions. I like it as I can make meals with difficult to find ingredients (like hoisin sauce or cilantro) and I'm hoping it will cut down on wastage

This was my first meal: Asian beef with asparagus and rice. Very nice it was too.

I have a few photos of my weekend in Antequera. (See Tuesday's blog):

Above you see my friend Encarna in the entrance of one of the dolmens we visited.

And there is me (with pink T-shirt) in the same one.

We also went to the El Torcal mountains to see the limestone formations: (and the view)

This formation (below) is called El Tornillo (el tor-nee-yo) which means 'the screw'.

I didn't take those above pictures, but I did take the one below with the beautiful flowers. There was a whole field full of them. Really pretty.

This last picture was taken in Antequera itself. A very beautiful old city.

That is all from me today. I'm having a lot of problems with my photos. I've finally been able to sort it all out on my PC. Good old PC!

I will be showing some funnies at the end, but now I'm going to link up with Annie at A Stitch In Time. So in the meantime have a lovely weekend.

Keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca