A Postcard a Day - 22 August 2015 a recipe for borscht

Good Morning! It's weekend! (important for those people that have to work)

Fancy doing some cooking this weekend? We are going to have bacon, eggs and baked beans and fried tomatoes on toast for lunch. The English call it a Full English Breakfast. But we have it for lunch.

If that is not what you fancy, how about some soup? Here is a recipe from Russia of their traditional soup called borscht. It is printed on a postcard I received from Moscow.

(Aubergine is egg plant for those in America.)

It sounds really nice. Here is what you do:

I haven't made it yet so if any of you make this soup, please let me know what it's like.

The stamps are really nice:

The one on the right celebrates the 350th anniversary of Irkutsk. That was in 2011.
The one on the left with the train is from 2013 and commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Kolomna Locomotive Works. 

Thank you Daria from Moscow for sending me this card.

Have a great weekend all of you,

See you tomorrow,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day 21 August 2015 linked with Friday Smiles

Good Morning!

It's Friday and I'm joining Annie at This Week's Smiles. Hopefully I can make you smile! 

This first 'notice' I picked up this week is for all of you who can't resist a nice piece of material. Yes, I mean You!

(Libby Woodlands‎Quilting For You)

But I normally show you a postcard... Here is one from my collection of  postcards designed by Inge Look. Even the 'naughty old ladies' are enjoying their holiday. One of them has her bum in a tub of water! 

It was sent to me by Sakari in Finland. He lives in Turku, the oldest city in Finland. He told me he was a retired hospital chaplain. 

He did put a special I Love Postcrossing stamp on  it! How cool is that!

In case you don't know what postcrossing is.... here is the link www.postcrossing.com.

If the above images have not made you smile then the next one will and I'll end on that note.

Have a good weekend everyone and remember: "Every cloud has a silver lining".

God bless,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - 20 August 2015, A lovely Lithuanian lady

Good Morning! Good Thursday!

I've been itching to show you this lovely card that I received recently through Postcrossing. It's from Lithuania and came in an envelope. The sender is Dainara from the capital Vilnius. Dainara had read that I'm interested in national costumes so she sent me this:

Isn't she beautiful? I love the heavy (warm) skirts and the woven sash. The embroidered details on the head dress and the cuffs and collar.
I know practically nothing about Lithuania but Dainara writes something about her country:

I loved the stamps Dainara had put on the envelope:

The one on the left is from the year 2000 when Lithuania did not yet use the Euro. It is from a Christmas series.
The stamp on the right is (according to the philately website) the Brazen Nature Reserve.

Well, that was another day that my postbox was happy.

That's it for today,
Tomorrow I will be linking up with Friday Smiles, so I'll choose a funny card.

See you tomorrow,

God bless,
Lisca

WOYWW 324 - some far away mail

Good morning everyone! And a happy Wednesday to you!

It's time to share our desks again. (If you don't know what I'm on about, visit our chief desk hopper Julia at stamping ground.)

My desk is full of birthday cards that shouldn't be revealed just yet, but I'm banking on the fact that the recipients won't be reading this blog. Anyway, what is visible are the insides of four birthday cards I'm making. Three of our kids have birthdays in August. The twins in England and my son in Italy. Plus my cousin in Holland. I'll show you the cards properly next week.

 In case you are wondering what the two cans of coconut milk are doing on my desk.... I use them as dumbels when I do my exercises. 

I had lots of interesting mail this week from faraway places. 

The lovely Patsy sent me this card from the Philipines. It has lots of yummy snacks on it. Patsy tells me she likes the halo-halo, the turon and the bibingka.

Then I got two more envelopes from the July envelope exchange:

This one was from a lady who lives on Vancouver Island by the ocean and often sees orcas swimming past. (She enclosed the card of the orcas).

This one came from the USA, but had nothing in it. It has beautiful calligraphy and special stamps. Very nice.

To finish here is a photo of my DH and I at the lake/reservoir where we camped last week. (More photos on yesterday's blog). 

Yes, the lake was really that colour... a deep turquoise. Beautiful.

That's it from me for today. This week I will try to visit everybody. It might not all be today but I will spread it out over the week.

Have a good week and see you soon,
Lisca

T for Tuesday - breakfast at the campsite

Good morning, happy Tuesday!

I hope you have all been well and that you are able to enjoy the summer holidays.

My DH and I have been away for a few days. We have a campervan (I think the Americans call it an RV) and we stayed at a campsite not far from our home (45 minutes drive). It was called Camping de la Bolera .

It was situated among the trees, so there was much shade. Very needed in this hot country. 

Here I am sitting down to breakfast. My DH is British so we have tea for breakfast and cereal. The Spanish don't use tea pots like people do in the UK. They have herbal teas and (at least in our village) the herbs get collected and put directly in a large lidded kettle. Of course they also use tea bags bought in the shop. Do you use tea pots in USA? and in Oz? Also the Spanish have never seen a tea cosy, so I did get a few comments. 

There was a lovely lake (reservoir), called La Bolera, a few minutes walk from the camp site, so of course we had to go and have a look.

Believe me the colour was really that turquoise! Beautiful!

The campsite had a swimming pool which I won't show you because if you've seen one, you've seen them all. There was a little restaurant with most tables outside.

 They had rigged up a sun shade with that green stuff that people here use for all sorts of things. So handy. We have fashioned a cover for the campervan with it and we have a sheet hanging in front of the terrace doors at home.

That's it from me this Tuesday. Have a lovely day and a great week!

Greetings from Spain,
Lisca

A Postcard a Day - 17 August 2015 Map Monday Quebec

Good morning!

I hope you had a good weekend.
Map Monday means I show you a map card. This one is from Quebec in Canada. I have never been to that part of Canada but looking at the map it must be beautiful.
The motto of Quebec region is 'I remember'.

The stamps are fantastic:

Both large stamps are from the International Year of the Forest. 
This is the whole sheet:

The smaller one on the left is called Flag over Historic Mills - Keremeos Grist Mill

That's it from me today.
Tomorrow is another day....

God bless
Lisca

A postcard a day - 16 August 2015 Abruzzo, Italy

Good morning and good Sunday!

As it’s Sunday I usually show you something church related. Today it’s a card of Abruzzo. The part of Italy where I spent many years of my life. The words under the photo translate: Beautiful Abruzzo “places of the spirit”.

Top left is the convent of Saint Angelo of Ocre (province of Aquila)

Top right is the hermitage of the Holy Spirit on the Maiella. The Maiella was our local mountain, it has ski pistes and lots of paths to walk and ramble. It’s not so visible on the photo but the buildings are ‘stuck’ to the side of the mountain. Sadly they are no longer permanently inhabited, but the monks go there in the summer and hold retreats.

Bottom left is another of my fav places on the side of a mountain (different mountain though). It’s called the hermitage of Saint Bartholomew (near Legio in province of Pescara). San Bartolomeo short video It can only be reached on foot and when I was younger a group of us did the walk every year. One of the popes of bygone years was exiled there.

The bottom middle is in a church Santa Maria dell’Assunta in Bominaco (province of Aquila) and bottom right is the abbey of St Clement in Casauria, province of Pescara.

The stamps are nothing special as this is a card that I sent to my mother the last time I was in Italy.

Have a lovely Sunday all of you and bare a though for those who have to work today (nurses, doctors, fire fighters, police etc)

See you tomorrow with Monday map card,

Blessings,

Lisca