A Postcard A Day - Friday 4 September 2020 - Friday Smiles

 

Good morning lovely ladies! It's Friday again (already. Doesn't the week fly by).

This Friday blog post is all about sharing smiles and about postcards of course.

First off is my postcard for today. It comes from Russia, from Moscow to be precise. It features three Russian beauties. They must be princesses as they look bored and spoilt . They are drinking a hot drink from a samovar, and eating snacks and fruit.

The postage stamp is a pretty classic, and the doggie stamp is not a postage stamp, but I think it's very cute

So what have the smiles been in my week?

Definitely my walks with my friend Antonia. We go walking every Friday and Monday morning. The last couple of weeks we have been going to the sierra, the hills that we see from our window.

This was the UK Bank Holiday weekend, and we should have been in the UK, camping with the family. Above you can see a photo with five of our grandchildren.

Saturday was a big day. We were invited to a small wedding. I had the honour of being 'stand-in' mum to Andres, who's parents couldn't be there.

It was a great wedding, and the food was lovely.

On Sunday hubby had to sort out the coffee grinder part of the coffee maker, which had become a bit clogged up. It's all working fine now.

Another walk on Monday:

The trees are magnificent. The Atlas Cedars (cedrus atlantica) are impressive. They have started to grow little cones.

The encinas (quercus ilex), below, are indigenous here. 

Quercus ilex, the evergreen oak, holly oak or holm oak, is a large evergreen oak native to the Mediterranean region. It takes its name from holm, an ancient name for holly. It is a member of the Cerris section of the genus, with acorns that mature in a single summer.

They are protected now as so many were felled during both world wars. Again, they are quite majestic:

I love them. They dot the landscape, often just one or two. They are evergreen and grow quite old and large. I wish they could speak.

Locals from the village of Zarza de Montánchez in Caceres have always known and loved La Terrona , perhaps the oldest and biggest holm oak in Spain. It took a bolt of lightning to bring it to the attention of the outside world. The lightning split the tree in two and almost killed it. Biologists came to the rescue and discovered that the tree is perhaps the oldest and biggest holm oak in the country: it's 16.5m tall, with a girth of 7.8m and is 800 years old. The village's ex-mayor claims they used to be an even bigger one: La Governadora, but it was burnt after also being hit by lightning 27 years ago. Although the biologists may have saved the venerable old tree from a natural death, its newly-found fame has brought new dangers, as unscrupulous tourists are causing serious damage. The Spanish postal service paid tribute to the Terrona in February 2004.

Then on Tuesday hubby and I went to the sierra again, in the car, to collect pine cones to light the fire with. Also little pieces of wood that we use for kindling. We collected six large bags from different locations.

I found an old tin (that must have come out of the campervan as it is an English tin) and I decided I'd better open it and use it. But there was no ring pull! I haven't used a tin opener for years, so it was a bit fiddly. 

Our combi microwave decided to go on strike after we'd accidentally slammed its door a bit too hard. I found an electrician willing to have a look at it and he came on Wednesday.  He took the appliance away with him and I haven't heard anything yet. I must say, it is very awkward cooking without the back-up of my microwave/oven/grill. I use the combi settings quite a lot, especially for jacket potatoes. 

I have since ordered a new oven, and it has arrived yesterday. It has a steam option. Hmm, interesting.

That is it from me this week.Time to visit Annie at A Stitch In Time and Virginia at Rocking Your World Friday.

Of course I will finish with some funnies. (There is a doggie one for Angela)

Take care everyone,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Friday 18 Sept 2015 Friday Smiles

Good Morning! Good 'Friday Smiles',

I found this doing the rounds on Facebook. I can't contribute this to anyone really.But it made me smile.

Well, my week has not been so rough at all, in fact we are in our campervan on a lovely camp site. I will go to the restaurant later to post this.

My postcard for today comes sent to me from Taiwan. As you can see the photo does not look Chinese at all... in fact it is French.

It reads: Paris 1969, Elliott Erwitt Snaps.

It was sent to me by Ying-Ying. She has made little drawings on the back of the card and put fun stickers on it.

She writes "One of  my friends that I swap postcards with once said that black&white photos are like a reticent old man (or in this case an old lady), quietly telling his or her story".

The stamps are great too:

I recognise the plant on the right hand stamp as Rosemary. The middle stamp looks like a child playing with puppets and the left one is a building, but what it is I don't know. 
I'm sorry if I haven't researched the stamps. (Will do better next time).

That's it from me today.

Tomorrow there will be another postcard for you to see and read about. Postcrossing really is an interesting hobby.

Blessings,

Lisca

PS I had a message from Ying-Ying. She writes:

Thanks a lot for the blog you've written for my card TW-1063496. About the building stamp: it's the National Palace Museum of Taipei, one the most popular tourism spots here, exhibiting numerous traditional artworks (one of the most famous artworks is the "jadeite cabbage with insects", a cabbage sculpture carved out of a lump of jade).

Have a nice day :-)

Ying-Ying”

A Postcard a Day 4 September 2015 Friday Smiles: actress, pussies and Labradorables

Good Morning! And hello Friday Smilers!

Have you all had a good week? I have had a lovely week. We went away in our campervan(RV) for two nights to the same camping we went to recently. We liked it so much we went back. All we did was relax. We read, puzzled, chatted, had nice meals, did Zentangles, played Rummicub, had a drink, collected pine cones, talked to the couple in the next van and generally had a good time.

Look at the size of the pine cones! (We collect them to light the fire with).

Now for my smiley postcard... no, the lady in question is certainly not smiling. But just looking at that sour face makes me smile:

Of course it's Margaret Rutherford! She was such an amazing actress! I like her as Miss Marple. Do any of you remember her? Or is it just me being old?

The card was sent to me recently by Birgit from Germany through Postcrossing. She must have seen in my profile that I love Black and white cards... Thank you Birgit.

If that didn't make you smile then these cuties might. I call them 'Labradorable':

I'll leave you with some words of wisdom:

That's it from me this Friday.

Have a good weekend all of you,

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day 27 August 2015 Books

Good Morning! 

We usually spend one night a week at our weekend home 40 km away. We went on Tuesday morning and had lunch (at 2pm) at our favorite restaurant, and spent the night in our little abode. It's very quiet, away from it all. No neighbours, no noise: total peace. We love it. On Wednesday I cooked an English meal: Bangers and Mash (for the uninitiated: sausages with mashed potatoes). Remember the song? (Peter Sellers and Sofia Loren)

We don't have English food very often but when we do I enjoy it with a nice glass of Spanish wine!

But you are here to see my postcards. I collected nine this week! 
This is one of them:

The photo does not have a date on it but it looks 1950s. That could be me in the photo. I love books! And did as a child. The card was sent to me by Marrku in Finland. He put a beautiful stamp on it:

The swan is designed by famous designer Klaus Haapaniemi. He lives in London and does fabrics for fashion and illustrations for books and all sorts of beautiful art work. Have a look on Google...

That's it for today. 

Tomorrow I'll link up with Friday Smiles.

See you then,

Blessings,

Lisca

WOYWW 307 a red lorry, paella and (not with) sheep poo

Warning: photo heavy! (sorry Mrs Dunnit)

Hi folks! It’s Wednesday yet again.That means WOYWW. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click on the WOYWW logo on the side bar and all will be explained.

Here is my desk as it looked last night. I’ve made little concertina booklets for the grandies and I’ve chosen the photos and the Bible verses. You can see the alphabet stamps ready to be used. Now all I have to do is put them together.

There is a little photo album of my mum’s with photos from 1932. (with my To-Do list on top of it) I’m in the process of scanning the photos into my computer.

The layout I was working on last week is now finished. This is the finished page. I've called it 'Cuel Valencia'. The journaling is on yesterday’s blog. (sorry, I don’t know how to do a link. Can anyone teach me?)

Now to our life in Spain: Last weekend was ‘Literary Weekend’ in our village. A stage was erected in the little park near our house and a lovely red classic lorry (1940) with a brass band on foot, paraded round the village advertising the theatre company from Granada who would be performing. 

I just love that lorry and followed the band all along the high street like a little kid!

A group of girls were preparing the bar and were very keen to be photographed for my blog. Here they are (I know most of them from the gym). 

At two o’clock the paella was ready.  And my hubby and I (and some friends) went for the food and the drink. 

I didn’t think our  Spanish language skills would be sufficient to appreciate the theatre production, so we didn't go. But my friends said it was very well attended and it was very good. (It was free apart from the food and drink which was subsidised by the council and very cheap indeed).

Finally the sheep poo. It’s a postcard. (sorry it's not straight)

It reads: In the magical, mystical mountains of Wales, sheep droppings are sterilised and washed.... then turned into card. No trees were harmed in the making of this postcard. A sheep only digests 50% of everything it eats. The rest is usable fibre. We made this special postcard for you from.... sheep poo!

I don’t know if this sheep poo story is true or if it is just a joke, (The card doesn’t smell or anything) but I thought it was funny.

We’re off travelling again this Friday. We’re taking the campervan to England (via the Santander ferry) to visit children and grandies, then to Holland to visit my mum, and through Belgium and France back to Spain. 

We will be away for 6 weeks. I’m not very good at blogging from my (android) tablet but I’ll try, depending also on finding wifi.

Anyway, that’s it for this week,

I wish everyone a great week and hopefully we’ll ‘meet’ again next Wednesday.

Lisca