A Postcard A Dat - Friday 8 April 2016 - Friday Smiles

Good Morning! It's Friday again!
For those nine to five people: It's nearly weekend!
I'm retired, and I like Fridays because I get to smile even more joining Friday Smiles at A Stitch In Time.

My card this morning arrived earlier this week from China. It had been raining and the postman throws the mail over the gate onto the patio, so it was a bit wet.... I dried it and pressed it and here it is for you to see:

It is a painting by Vincent van Gogh called Wheat Field with a Reaper (1889). When I looked closely I saw that the reaper was a bunny and that the scene only vaguely looked like the original! That made me smile.
The stamps are beautiful:

I had lots to smile about this week. Since the soggy reaping rabbit, DH has put our new postbox up by our front door! The red one! (I have shown this already)

Also this week my desk has been built. The carpenter came Monday to put it in.

I am super happy! This is where i am sitting at this very moment. You can see the socket hanging from the wall. The desk came exactly onto the socket, so DH ripped it out and will put a new socket (or two)  on the wall.

It's spring and many people have started spring cleaning:

This made me smile because I've been known to do that!

And the next photo is not a funny really but I wanted to share it with you nonetheless:

I do try to shop locally and I know many of you do too.

That is it from me today. 
Wishing you a lovely week with many smiles!
Blessings,
Lisca

A postcard a day - Saturday 5 Sept 2015 Rain, Nanjing and two big hearts

Good morning peeps,

It's Saturday and I hope you had a lie-in. We had to get up early as two of our friends have come to help my DH with the building work. Bless'em. 

A bit of rain here is a major event. It rained (for the second time this summer!) earlier in the week. There is a thunder storm, the skies goes dark and then it buckets down for about an hour after which the sun comes out again. Normally we can see it coming and make sure there are no leaves on the drain. This time we hadn't noticed.... so Graham had to find the drain under the water and sweep the leaves so that the water can run off....

Now if looking at water has a certain effect on you, you'd better cross your legs as there is more water to come...

My postcard for today is from China and features (I think) the floating market. Anyway it is a cool cartoon of the city of Nanjing. Sent to me by Xiaodouzi. 

Xiaodouzi has also stuck on a beautiful double stamp:

It's quite big and takes up half of the postcard! In the circle I read: 'Services  for marriage and family'. I've not been able to find any info on the internet about this stamp strangely enough. But it is beautiful. Thank you Xiaodouzi.

That's it from me for today.

Have a great weekend,

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - 16 July my fav card from China

Hi peeps,

A couple of days ago I received the best card ever! It is a map card (which I love) and it came all the way from China. It looks like this:

Inside the map are the names of major Chinese cities, and around the map are the words 'hello' in different languages. 

The card was sent by Miko (an 18 yr old girl), who lives in a city called Dalian (formerly know as Port Arthur). 

Doesn't she have beautiful handwriting. (and that for a person not used to western script)

She put a little star on the map on the back to indicate where Dalian is (just as well as I didn't know where it was...)

According to the stamp that reads: 'SURFACE', I assume this card came by surface mail. It took a month to get to me. Not bad!

Apart from decorating the card with washi tape and stickers, Miko has also written my name in Chinese characters.

That is so cool!

The stamps are amazing:

A beautiful falcon and another ship. (I got a ship stamp from someone not long ago).

I love this card!

Tomorrow I will show you another one.

CU then,

Lisca

A Postcard a day - 14 July 2015

Good morning everyone!,

Today we 'travel' to China, as I'm showing you a postcard I received this week all the way from China. It was sent to me by Zihu.

It depicts a beautiful tea set that is used for the famous tea ceremony. 

Now for the stamp:

It looks like a ship connected to an off-shore drilling station.

If you'd like to know more about the tea ceremony,

I have found some info on the internet about it (what would we do without internet I say...)

I will post that at the bottom of this post.

That's it from me.

Have a good day and CU tomorrow,

Lisca

The Chinese practice a form of tea ceremony called Gong Fu, which has some similarities and many more differences to the possibly more well-known Japanese tea ceremony. 

In a Gong Fu style tea ceremony, the tea master preparing the tea for the group is considered an artist in his or her own right. 

Styles for pouring the water and tea vary individually, and many devote a lot of time practicing difficult and artistic maneuvers. Usually the equipage for this tea ceremony would be a clay Yi-Xing pot and several small teacups, a tea sink or shallow bowl for draining water into, and a few bamboo tools for handling the hot objects. 

The tea master will arrange the teapot and cups in a circular fashion over the tea sink or in the bowl, and pour hot water into each to rinse the objects and to warm them so that the temperature of the tea is more consistent. This rinse water is discarded, and then a generous helping of tea leaves, usually oolong, is measured into the pot. More hot water is then poured into the pot and the tea leaves will begin steeping. 

Every infusion in Gong Fu ceremony is very quick, about 30 seconds, though the method for timing is never exactly precise. In one tradition hot water is poured over the outside of the teapot, and when the water is seen to be fully evaporated, the tea is ready to be poured. In another, the tea master must count a full 4 deep breaths before beginning to pour. Either of these methods is roughly a 30 second steep, and remains consistent throughout the multiple following infusions. 

Then the tea master will begin pouring in a continuous flow around to each of the teacups, a little at a time, resulting in each person having the equal amount and strength of tea in his or her cup. After enjoying this first round of tea, the leaves may be re-steeped for many more infusions.