A Postcard a Day - Friday 11 March 2016 Friday Smiles

Hi folks, sorry I am late to join this morning. So many things to do and not enough time. Sounds familiar?

My postcard for today comes from Germany. I only received it yesterday from Jasmin.

A beautiful Art Nouveau door from Darmstadt. I have since found out it is the door of the Hans Dieters house which was built by Olbrich in 1900. 
Here is a photo from the internet of that house:

Beautiful.

So what smiley news have I got other than the sun is shining here.... well, I have got a new computer!! Whoop whoop! It is a desktop this time with a huge screen (something I have always wanted). Here it is:

I am super pleased! I have spent all yesterday transferring stuff from one computer to the other and generally tidying up the files as I went along so my laptop has a bit more memory. The fan is broken or something and it heats up and then dies (my laptop) but the guy that sold me the new one is going to see if it can be repaired and then I will have a spare. One can never have enough computers hehe.

My other activities this week pale in comparison, but I continue to go the the gym, stick to my diet and lose weight. I treated myself to sushi the other day (OK from the supermarket, but it was nice). (the photo won´t upload... oh well, you all know what sushi looks like)

My DH continues to work in the new flat. He is painting doors, putting doorhandles and locks in (boy what are those things expensive!). Still waiting for the granite which will arrive next week.

I´ll leave it at that as it is getting late. The rest of the day I shall be busy trying to get my iTunes music transferred. Not an easy operation. I have tried it once yesterday, spent hours and then it didn´t happen. Hopefully today is another day and it will go smoothly.

Have a great week all of you. I´m linking up with Annie at A Stitch In Time and with Virginia at Rocking Your World Friday. See you there!

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Friday 10 Feb 2016 Friday smile, postcard, blossom and ice

Good morning lovely people!

It's Friday again. Are you all feeling positive ? Are you all smiling? If you are not, please read on as I'm sure I can coax a little smile out of you.

My postcard today comes from Germany. It is a famous photo of the workmen with their lunch boxes apparently very high in the sky on a metal beam. 

 I get vertigo just looking at it!
The stamps are beautiful. I like it when people make an effort to find nice stamps.

The three flowers are from left to right: crocus, tagetes (marigold) and tulip. The other stamp is the city of Dresden, a view of the city and the river Elbe.

The weather has turned nasty here. All of a sudden it is cold. Last week we saw this:

Almond blossom.
Yesterday, after the frost we saw this:

It's not the same tree. This is an olive tree with ice on it. Luckily the harvest is over. I didn't take this picture, but it was taken not far from our house.

We have struggled to keep the two stoves going with the gales and we ended up buying new 'hats' for our chimney pipes, which did help. When there is a gale blowing we get a lot of smoke being driven into the house instead of out! Makes my eyes water. 

I have shared this already on Tuesday, but it is such positive news that I will mention it again: We have got compensation after our flight to Holland in December was delayed. A lot of money! After commission we got 569 Euros! So if anyone (in Europe) has had their flight delayed or has not been able to board due to overbooking, fill in the online form at flightright.com. They are very efficient and fast. Airlines have to compensate by law, and this company does the claim for you. All you have to do is fill out the details and wait. That is worth the commission I think. We are over the moon with the money. That paid for my new cooker, lol.

 I'm going to finish with a joke. Or did it really happen? Any woman who has been to the gynaecologist can imagine this situation. I wet myself when I read this:

I was due for an appointment with the gynaecologist later in the week. Early one morning, I received a call from the doctor’s office to tell me that I had been rescheduled for that morning at 9:30 am. I had only just packed everyone off to work and school, and it was already around 8:45 am. The trip to his office took about 35 minutes, so I didn’t have any time to spare. As most women do, I like to take a little extra effort over hygiene when making such visits, but this time I wasn’t going to be able to make the full effort.

So, I rushed upstairs, threw off my pyjamas, wet the washcloth that was sitting next to the sink, and gave myself a quick wash in that area to make sure I was at least presentable. I threw the washcloth in the clothes basket, donned some clothes, hopped in the car and raced to my appointment.
I was in the waiting room for only a few minutes when I was called in. Knowing the procedure, as I’m sure you do, I hopped up on the table, looked over at the other side of the room and pretended that I was in Paris or some other place a million miles away.
I was a little surprised when the doctor said, “My, we have made an extra effort this morning, haven’t we?” I didn’t respond.

After the appointment, I heaved a sigh of relief and went home. The rest of the day was normal .. Some shopping, cleaning, cooking. After school when my 6 year old daughter was playing, she called out from the bathroom, “Mommy, where’s my washcloth?”

I told her to get another one from the cupboard.

She replied, “No, I need the one that was here by the sink, it had all my glitter and sparkles saved inside it.”

Never going back to that doctor again……….. never..

(Linking up with Annie at A Stitch in Time for Friday Smiles)

Have a great week, you'all.

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Friday 22 Jan 2016 - Friday Smiles

Hi everybody, Happy Friday!

We're back in Spain after having spent time in Holland and Denmark. It's great to travel, but also good to be back home and sleeping in my own bed.

So how has my week been...Well, the temperatures have gone down and it is quite cold even in Spain. 10 to 15 degrees C in the day and in single figures at night. The house needed warming up, so we have bought a dual fuel stove for the newbuild. 

(see Tuesdays's blog). My DH has been working very hard knocking holes in the wall and connecting chimney pipes. It is working. And the wood burner stove has been scrubbed and painted 

(see also Tuesday's blog) and today is also working. I have the kettle on the top boiling the water so I can have a cup of tea without having to go to the kitchen next door.  Now isn't that something to smile about! In the photo the stove is standing on two blocks. That's too high. It's now on only one block. 

My Christmas cards are still hanging up. (I like to keep them for a while) but really I needed to tidy up my desk area (behind the sofa).
When I was putting stuff away, I came across an envelope with scrapbook stuff in it. I must have started a lay-out, got all the bits together, but then never made the page. So I finished the lay-out. No, it's not finished-finished. It needs a bit more and I want to add quite a bit of journaling as it was 1953 or 54. But I'm pleased I am scrapping again as I haven't done a lay-out for many months.

Now for my postcards. I have been away so there were 11 postcards in my mailbox when we went to the other house (where my mail arrives). 

This one made me smile. It came from Germany.

The scene looks like it could be in Italy in the 50s or 60s, with youngsters dancing rock 'n roll.

The stamp is this one:

It celebrates 100 years of the dam in The Möhne Reservoir—or Moehne Reservoir—is an artificial lake in North Rhine-Westphalia, some 45 km east of Dortmund, Germany. Wikipedia

My funny for this week has to do with smiles. I'll be linking up with Annie at A stitch in time. Please join us and tell us what has made you smile today.

I'm also linking up with Virginia for Rocking your World Friday later on. 

Have a good week and keep smiling!

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Sunday 29 Nov 2015 - InSPIREd Sunday

Good morning! I hope you are all having a blessed Sunday.

I have chosen a postcard from Germany today. From Potsdam in eastern Germany. According to Marco (who sent me the card) Potsdam is 1020 years old and has 13 castles and more than 100 famous places.

Marco says the church is called the Peter and Paul Church, but is generally known as the Friedenskirche (the Peace Church).

Wikipedia  says this:
This church is situated in the palace grounds of the Sanssouci park. The church was built according to the wishes (and with the close involvement) of the artistically gifted King Frederick William IV and designed by court architect Ludwig Persius. The church is located in the area covered by the UNESCO World Heritage Site Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin.

The cornerstone was laid on April 14, 1845. The building was dedicated on September 24, 1848, though construction continued until 1854. The structure resembles a High Medieval Italian monastery.

Frederick William himself made the original sketches on which the design was to be based. he gave his architect two main instructions: the church was to derive in form and size from the early Christian Basilica di San Clemente in Rome. And it had to accomodate the apse mosaic from the church in San Cipriano on the island of Murano in the Venetian lagoon, which Frederick William had purchased in 1834 when that church was scheduled for demolition. 

A popular etching of the early Christian version of the Basilica di San Clemente made by Gutensohn and Knapp probably inspired the design of the Potsdam church.

The king saw the design of early Christian sacred buildings, converted from market and court halls, as particularly appropriate. He was trying to establish a reconciliation between the Protestant majority of the original Prussian state and the Catholics of the more recently acquired lands, notably in the Rhineland Province. Since he associated Gothic architecture with the Catholic faith, he was looking for an alternative design vocabulary for the Prussian-Protestant church.. Skipping martin Luther, he went back to early Christianity as an inspiration. However, he did not distinguish too finely between early Christian and High Medieval architecture - as long as it was Romanesque.

That was my contribution for today,
Have a good day and see you tomorrow for Map Monday.

Blessings,
Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Saturday 7 Nov 2015 Books

Good Morning! Good Saturday!

Today my blog is about books. I love books. I am fascinated by books and ever since I was able to read, I have loved books. But I also love postcards of books...

Here is a card I received from Germany:

They are shelves of folio size 17th and 18th century leather-bound books shelved in Arts End in the old medieval library (Duke Humfrey's Library) at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. The card was sent to me by Claudia, who had actually visited the Bodleian. She saw where certain scenes from Harry Potter were filmed.

I am a fervent reader. Now that English language books are difficult to get by here in Spain, I have a Kindle (an e-reader) and I download 99p books from Amazon's Daily Deal. I'll show another postcard first before I tell you what I have been reading.

This card also came from Germany.
The stamp was quite modern, without the traditional dented edges:

What did I read last month?
I read Borkmann's Point by Hakan Nesser

A murder mystery. In fact more than one murder: a serial ax killer. Very well put together. I didn't know who was the killer until the very end.

Then I read The Year Of Living Danishly

Its non-fiction. An English journalist moves to Denmark when her husband accepts a job at Lego. It's written in a very humorous way, very entertaining. (We're going to Denmark in January for the first time so I wanted to know a bit more about the country).

Today I finished reading A Meditation on Murder by Robert Thorogood.

I used to enjoy the tv series Death in Paradise and this is a book by the same author, about the same people as in the tv series. A good murder mystery.

I haven't decided what I'm going to read next (tonight). It's a toss-up between Dorothy Sayers: Nine Tailors and Laline Paull's Bees.... I'll let you know next month.

Have a good weekend,

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Monday 5 Oct 2015 Map Monday: Friesland

Good Morning! Good Monday!

Hope you have all had a good weekend and are back to normal with renewed enthusiasm.

I have a long 'to-do' list today which includes going to the gym, having my bloods taken at the health center and getting together with my girl friends for a prayer meeting. Of course I have to get our 'daily bread' at the baker and go to the post office and order some stamps. 

It's Monday and on that day I usually make a menu for the whole week, so i know what sort of things to look out for when we do our weekly shop later today. We have our main meal in the day, so that meal needs to be cooked. We eat at 3 pm, after which we (my DH and I) go grocery shopping. My DH comes with me as I can't drive our 'truck'. I can't reach the pedals!

I have two cards to show you today. They both show a part of Friesland. Here is a map to show you where it is:

The brown bits are Friesland (Frisia). Most of it is in Germany and the western part is in the Netherlands. They have their own language. I go to Friesland occasionally as my two cousins live there. Frisian is the official language there and all the street signs are in both Dutch and Frisian. 

Here is what Wikipedia writes about Frisians:

The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia (which was a part of Denmark until 1864). The Frisian languages are still used by 500,000 speakers; dialects of Frisian are recognized as official languages in both the Netherlands and Germany.

The above postcard is a satellite photo of North Friesland (the northern brown bit on the top map).  I recognize the island that looks a bit like a letter T.

This card is Eastern Friesland. (The middle brown bit on the top map). Like North Friesland, it is part of Germany.

I don't have a map card of the Dutch part of Friesland (yet).

The stamps are beautiful:

The cellist on the left celebrates 50 years of youth orchestras and the stamp on the right features the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. (Restored 18th century gate & landmark with 12 Doric columns topped by a classical goddess statue)

Two lovely flowers on the left are the Tulip and the Tagetes (Marigold). The stamp on the right is part of a series of light houses. This one is the lighthouse on Fehmarn Island (Schleswig-Holstein).

The famous Flügge lighthouse on Fehmarn Island's south-western peninsula is striking. It's been operating since 1916 and is almost identical to the Neuland lighthouse on Hohwachter Bay. It's 37 m tall, and was originally yellow with a red lantern. Since 1977 it has been covered in characteristic red-and-white glass plating.

That's it from me for today. It has become a bit long so well done if you are still with me!

See you tomorrow when I link up with T for Tuesday.

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Sunday 20 September 2015 Speyer Cathedral and the origin of the word 'Protestant'

Good morning friends, It's Sunday again. 

I've had my breakfast (scrambled egg on toast, a Sunday treat) and in an hour we'll be heading to church.

I'm showing you a postcard from Germany, which was one of the first Postcrossing cards I received five years ago.

It shows the Romanesque Speyer Cathedral. It was sent to me by  Georg in Neustadt. He knew I liked UNESCO World heritage Sites and this cathedral is a world heritage site.

Georg also gives me some interesting info on the cathedral and the city of Spyer.

The last paragraph explains where the word 'Protestant' comes from. Interesting.... I didn't know that.

The stamp features Johannes Calvin.

Johannes (John) Calvin (1509-1564)was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism.

Here are two quotes by Calvin:

"However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts."

"There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice."

That's it from me today. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll see you tomorrow with MondayMap.

Blessings,

Lisca



  

A Postcard a Day - Thursday 17 Sept 2015 A door, a bridge and a 'good day'

Good Morning! Good Thursday!

(Translation: Good day! That you may have a day full of light and joy)

Here is my postcard for today:

This is my favorite 'door' card. The text on the card reads: (in my bestest German translation) "Friendschip is like a door between two people... it can squeak, it can jam but it is never closed" - Baltasar Gracian.

It was sent to me by Heike from Germany. She lives in Vechta, in the north. (a town known for its horses, moorwitches and goblins!) She works in a prison for young men (18-25) and has done so for 23 years. She helps people with training, school, family visits, post etc. What an interesting job. I wonder if there are any prisoners that do Postcrossing....

This is the stamp:

The Fehmarn Sound Bridge connects the German island of Fehmarn in the Baltic Sea with the German mainland near Großenbrode. Wikipedia

2. Construction started: January 1960
3. Total length: 963 m
4. Opened: April 30, 1963
5. Longest span: 240 m
6. Clearance below: 23 m
7. Height: 67 m

That is it for today.

I will see you again tomorrow when I link up with A Stitch in Time' Friday Smiles.

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Tuesday 15 Sept 2015 T for...Bavarian breakfast and... ice cream

Good Morning and Good Tuesday!

I'm linking up with Elizabeth's T for Tuesday blog. Anything drink related is allowed (and not just tea).
So my offering this week is a postcard (of course) with a drink in it. 

It says (in German) 'Greetings from Bayern'. Bayern is Bavaria in English. It's from Maria who lives in Muenchen (Munich), the largest city in Bavaria. 

The card depicts a Bavarian breakfast. Well, says Maria, call it brunch.  Apart from the pretzel, I don't think I would fancy any of that in the morning, would you?

Maria writes that she works at the reception of a Youth Hostel and has done for many years. She is also studying Psychology for a bachelor degree.

The stamps she used are quite nice:

 I won't say anything about the tulip but the other stamp that reads  Ruhr.2010 – Kulturhauptstadt Europas. It was the name of the campaign in Germany's Ruhr region that earned its recognition as a European Capital of Culture in 2010. This was the first time a region was considered, as Essen represented all 53 towns in the region in the application. 

Now that we've had (German) breakfast... how about some ice cream?
Our friends Eusebio and Antonia have an ice cream shop in Baza. He makes the most beautiful Italian ice cream with all natural ingredients. Yumm!
Often we go after church and have an ice cream (and a catch-up chat of course).

This is DH with a lovely ice cream. Eusebio let us look behind the scenes...

He started with a sort of cakey layer that was drenched in liquor. He sprinkled sugar on top.

Then with a hot iron caramelized it in seconds. This was set aside to cool.

Then we moved to the icecream machine and a whole bucket of cream was poured in. 

The cake with the caramelized sugar was put in the bottom of a container and then ice cream extruded from the machine on top of it. 

Several layers were made this way, very fast as the stuff has to stay cold. (Spot DH with a spoon at the ready to spoon up the 'dregs'!)

The result was this. ('Here is one that I made earlier')

Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is....

So I'll leave you all salivating and I'll be back tomorrow, when I link up with WOYWW.

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day Sun 6 Sept 2015, Here comes the bride! and a church or two

Good Morning! Good Sunday!

Yesterday the daughter of one of my neighbours got married. The whole neighborhood stood on the corner to watch. She went to the church in a four horse drawn carriage. The horses were beautiful (so was the bride..)

She was on her way to the main church in our village of Caniles. Iglesia de Santa Maria y San Pedro 1642 (Church of saint Mary and saint Peter)

Spot the yellow letterbox where I usually post my Postcrossing postcards.

I love seeing beautiful horses and they were so well groomed and prettied up. Look at their tails all braided.

Now for my postcard for this Sunday:

This one is from Germany. A totally different church. This church is the Jacob's church and also visible in the picture is the town hall. It is in the town of Koethen in Sachsen-Anhalt. Sent to me by Marco who tells me that the composer Johann Sebastian Bach lived  and worked in the town for a few years. Interesting. He must have played the organ in that church...

This has become quite a photo heavy post but I don't think you mind do you?

Have a blessed Sunday,

See you tomorrow,

Lisca