A Postcard A Day - Friday 4 July 2025 - Friday Smiles

 

Hello lovely girls,

Happy Friday! (And happy Independence Day to my friends across the pond).

Today I'm showing you a fun postcard:

It was sent to me by Eva from Germany. I love giraffes. They fascinate me. There is some info on the back of the card. Translated this reads: "Giraffes in the African savanna spend a lot of time eating. The menu includes leaves, fruits, young tree shoots, and even grass. At first, the giraffe eats as quickly and as much as it can, then it looks for a spot in the shade and calmly regurgitates its leaf meal to chew."

The stamp is the run-of-the-mill German stamp featuring things made of paper with a postal theme, in this case a castle in the shape of an envelope.

Now let me think what the highlights and smiles were this week.

I stumbled upon a procession at some point while walking home from the shops. There are so many festivities these days that I don't know which saint is being honoured here.

On Sunday it was the inauguration of the photo club exhibition. Below is a photo of the whole group as we went for a meal later that day.

I am second from the right standing up.

The first course were little tentacles called chipirones. I love them.

The main course was paella, which had been ordered in advance:

Here is my portion. I didn't eat a full plate as I had already eaten nibbles, a salad,  and a first course.

That was my last guzzle meal. I have now started on a so-called Mediterranean diet, in an attempt to lose a few pounds. I'm following an on-line diet called No.diet. So far the meals are really nice and I even have breakfast every day. I'm eating things like avocado and poached egg on toasted wholemeal bread, or pearl barley with salmon, brown rice, chicken and vegetables. I'll keep you posted about how much I lose (or not as the case may be).

The rest of the week was uneventful. I went to Pilates while I had a car. I scraped a wall somewhere (I'm not aware of having done that) so that my bumper needed to be repaired and re-sprayed. I'm without a car for two days and a bit. I'll have it back when you read this.

That is all from me.

 I'm going to visit Annie at A Stitch In Time and I hope you will all join me there.

Bye for now,

Lisca

Of course there will be some funnies at the end.

Germany's highest mountain, 1780 m, is called Mount Wank. "With its beautiful summit plateau, it is a popular destination for families in particular. The Wankbahn cable car takes visitors up to the summit"

A Postcard A Day - Wednesday 2 July 2025 - Second on the 2nd (an old blogpost)

 Good morning lovely ladies!

Today I'm joining Elizabeth and Bluebeard with a Second On The 2nd. A blog post from the past. This one is from the first week of July 2016:

Good Morning!

It is now well and truly summer! Schools have broken up, legal summer schedules have come into force (like: not allowed to put rubbish/trash out between 8 and 20:00, and anyone in the building trade is not allowed to work after 3 pm) and clubs have all closed for the summer. 

I have said goodbye to my fellow embroiderers earlier and Friday was our last day at the gym. We finished a bit earlier that day and we all went for breakfast at a nearby bar.

There's yours truly sitting on the right. 
The Spanish breakfast is a toasted baguette with olive oil and crushed sieved tomatoes (and some salt).

This was my breakfast. I enjoyed it as at home I don't usually have this.

I'm joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth at T for Tuesday, where we can post anything that has a drink in it. Well, my drink is coffee this morning. I'm not a lover of milky coffee like the other ladies, so I'm having café cortado, which has a splash of milk in it.

The bar is decorated in a typical Andalucian way. Look at the beautiful tiles and the typical curtains:

I love the tradidional cut glass lamps. I have one in our stairway, but with normal glass (not colored).

Here is the postcard that I received today:

You are right if you guessed it came from Russia. The city is Kostroma, which lies about 350 km northeast of Moscow. The building on the picture is part of the Ipatievski monastery, the 17th century Trinity Cathedral. 
This is the tiny stamp (I'd never seen this one before):

Juliya writes:"Do you have good summer days? Hope you do, because in central part of Russia it's only +10 in the 11th of June!" I would happily send her some sunshine and warm weather if I could!

Have a fab Tuesday and a blessed week,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 1 July 2025 - T for colourful stamps, lunch with friends and a loving cat

 Hello lovely peeps,

It's Tuesday again! And I'd like to show you a postcard from Germany:

It comes from Cottbus, which you can see below on the map. 

It's south-east of Berlin, near the Polish border.

The card has some info on it in German and I took a screen shot of the Google translation:

It was sent to me by Jana, who is as christian like me and likes to read, and also plays the harp.

The stamps are very colourful.

The three on the left are the paper figures with a postal theme. The peacock at the top has envelopes in his  feathers. The fish in the middle has a fin in the shape of a postal stamp. And the bottom one is the message in a bottle.

The large stamp features 100 year German Tanzsportverband, which means dance sport association.

As far as I know, dance sport is competitive ballroom dancing. I've not been able to completely understand what they mean by dance sport. The couple on the stamp seem to be doing the Charlston.

What else can I tell you.

My little spiderplant, which was a tiny cutting, is now flowering for the first time and the tiny flowers are gorgeous:

Can you see the little white flowers?

Today Elizabeth and Bluebeard are hosting the Tea-Party and for that I need to show you a drink:

On Sunday after church my friends organized a bring-and-share lunch. The drinks are visible at the far end of the table. I had made a rice dish and a cake (which was on a different table as it was for 'after').

We had a lovely time socializing. All of these people are my friends but for various reasons I don't see them all regularly.

I want to show you a couple of photos of Ronnie:

I photographed him cuddling on my lap. I used the selfie mode on my phone and after a few tries, I got a decent one.

I have a tray of cat toys, but before I got the chance to choose a toy to play with, Ronnie plonked himself on the tray, on top of the toys!

At the moment he is lying on top of the table, seemingly sleeping.

But when I got close, he opened one eye...

That's it folks. I hope it's not as hot over where you are as it is very hot here. 

Happy T-Day,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 27 June 2025 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely peeps,

How are you all? Have you had something to make you smile this week? I have a postcard to show you that made me smile. It arrived yesterday:

It's entitled Briefkasten Schlange which means literally mailbox snake. I would say mailbox queue. It's a photo from 1926, nearly 100 years ago!

It was sent to me by Isabelle from Switzerland. She wrote that she was going to a gymnastics fest in Lausanne where gymnastic clubs from all over Switzerland come together to celebrate and compete agains each other. It is a once-every-six-years event.

I looked it up on the Internet:

From June 12 to 22, 2025, Lausanne will pulsate with the rhythm of gymnastics demonstrations and competitions, all free and open to the public. The 77th Swiss Federal Gymnastics Festival will showcase all facets of our sports. A unique opportunity for Swiss gymnasts and the public to celebrate the diversity of gymnastics together in a festive setting, in a spirit of respect and inclusion.

The stamp is lovely:

Isabelle mentions that the stamp features her favorite mountain, the Rigi.

The Rigi is a mountain massif of the Alps, located in Central Switzerland. The whole massif is almost entirely surrounded by the water of three different bodies of water: Lake Lucerne, Lake Zug and Lake Lauerz. Wikipedia

I have traveled through Switzerland many times by car and by train and it is beautiful. But to be honest, I have never stopped or stayed there. (It's expensive).

Now here in Spain life is not so expensive and I am enjoying life very much.

On Monday night we had a community night walk (start 21:15) through the village around all the wells/water sources. They call it the night of San Juan. 

Wikipedia writes: The Night of San Juan, celebrated in Andalusia, Spain, on June 23rd, is a magical and vibrant midsummer's eve festival. It blends ancient pagan rituals with Catholic traditions, with a focus on fire and water, symbolizing purification and renewal.

The photo was taken during the first part of the walk when it was still light. It doesn't get really dark until after 10 pm.

We didn't do the bonfire thing, as far as I know. It was more than 6 km, going up and down several hills and I was tired. I went straight home after the walk as the last bit of the walk comes past my house, so perhaps they did have a bonfire, but I didn't attend. (I did hear fireworks bang)

On Sunday I had a busy morning as our village was organizing an archery competition for the clubs in the area.

Here (above photo) are the ladies from my club.

Rebecca and Sylvia, two ladies from my group. I didn't participate as I had several other things on that Sunday.

The sports facilities in our village are very good. This complex has, apart from the soccer pitch, where we were doing the archery, there is also a swimming pool, tennis courts and padel courts:

That was early Sunday morning. I stayed an hour to watch and then I drove to Baza to have breakfast in this restaurant (round the corner from the church):

I had traditional Andalusian breakfast (toast with olive oil and tomatoes), an orange juice that they squeeze on the spot, and a coffee with ice:

The ice gets served separate, so I put sugar in my coffee and after stirring, I pour it in the glass with the ice cubes. A type of ice coffee.

After church there was a bring-and-share lunch with my prayer group in our village, but I'll leave that for another day.

So lots of smiles for me. Please join me at Annie's at A Stitch In Time .

I will put some funnies at the end.

Have a lovely weekend,

Lisca