A Postcard A Day - Friday4 April 2025 - Friday Smiles

 

Hello lovely ladies,

Spring is coming, the sun is shining and life is good! Have you got much to smile about? Join me at Annie's A Stitch In Time.

I have a postcard from Finland to share with you. I get many cards from Finland as Postcrossing is very popular there but rarely do I get a view of a town or landscape. Here is a view from the old town of Raua:

Part of the centre ( Old Rauma) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, due to its well-preserve old wooden architecture.

Wikipedia writes: In the 14th century, before it was declared a town, Rauma had a Franciscan monastery and a Catholic church. In 1550, the townsmen of Rauma were ordered to relocate to Helsinki, but this was unsuccessful and Rauma continued to grow.

The stamp is beautiful.

The Europa stamp depicting flora features the Zostera marina seagrass, the only fully submerged seed plant in the Baltic Sea. The distribution of the salt-dependent plant extends to the central Gulf of Finland and the northern Bothnian Sea. The plant also provides a habitat for many other species.

“The Europa stamps feature a beetle and a plant. The gleaming water at the top of each stamp emphasizes the fact that the species live underwater. The shape of the upper part of the stamps depicts a wave, and the uneven stamp separation creates an image of air bubbles rising to the surface,” say Susanna Rumpu and Ari Lakaniemi, the stamp’s designers.

The animal for the Finnish Europa stamps is the Macroplea pubipennis leaf beetle, which thrives in shallow and sheltered sea bays. The beetle, which is less than a centimeter long, can seldom be found in Finland in the area from Hamina to Oulu and on the Åland Islands.

I've had a quiet week. The clocks have gone forward and I always need a week or so to feel cofortable with it.

On Monday my neighbor Dian knocked on my window and told me to look outside. There I saw a lunar eclipse! 

Bad photo but I didn't have time to get my camera out and just used my phone. I looked it up and I found stuff about eclipses in March until the 29th but nothing about the 31st. The blacked out bit is the shadow of the earth as far as I understand it. 

On Tuesday Kim and Andy came to lunch, after I had gone to the health centre to have my stitches out. All is well, no infection.

The private gym that I go to has added another room to their venue and I have had lessons there. The other ladies seem reluctant (or not able) to change their schedules to go to the new room. On Tuesday I was the only one, I had a private lesson. Fantastic. And yesterday there were two of us. The teacher can easily monitor and correct any mistakes. I have been doing Pilates for years but the teacher pointed out something I had obviously done incorrectly all these years.

I'll leave you with My cat's fangs:

And with some funnies of course at the end.

Wishing you all a very pleasant weekend,

Blessings,

Lisca