A Postcard a Day - Monday 7 Sept 2015 Ireland and tatting

Good Morning! It's Monday! 

It's especially on Mondays that I really like being retired. I really feel for my friends who are middle aged but through the change in the law now have to work many years longer than they thought.

Monday with me now means 'map Monday'. I love map cards and today I'm showing you one from Eire (Ireland).

The Cead Mile Failte (sorry there should be accents on those words but I don't know how to do accents on my keyboard) is Gaelic and as far as I know means: One hundred thousands welcomes.

It was sent to me a while ago now by John. He tells me that his partner's elderly mother is an expert lace maker, who has shown samples of her work in Europe. His partner does tatting but he doesn't know what that is. Perhaps you don't either. It is a kind of knotted lace made by hand with a small shuttle, and is used chiefly for trimming.

The stamps are beautiful.

But I have not been able to find any information on them. The left hand stamp is a Christmas edition from 2001. The one on the right is from 2007 but I have no idea what it is celebrating... marriage? And what does the white carnation symbolize?

I'll leave you with that. Have a good Monday. 
See you tomorrow when I link up with T for Tuesday.

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

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 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 - 3 September 2015 Coco Chanel

Good Morning! Good Thursday!

This week I received many postcards again. In my Postcrossing profile I write that I love black and white photos. So often people oblige and this week I got a lovely card with Coco Chanel on it.

Sent to me by Sabine from Germany. She lives and works in Oberhausen. Apart from Postcrossing she also likes writing to penpals. Thank you Sabine!

The photo of miss Chanel was taken in 1937 by photographer John Phillips.

Wikipedia writes this about her:

Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel (19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971)^[1] was a French fashion designer and founder of the Chanel brand. Along with Paul Poiret, Chanel was credited with liberating women from the constraints of the "corseted silhouette" and popularizing a sportive, casual chic as the feminine standard of style in the post-World War I era. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel's influence extended beyond couture clothing. Her design aesthetic was realised in jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.^[2]

Chanel was known for her lifelong determination, ambition, and energy which she applied to her professional and social life. 

Some of her quotes:

'Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.'

'Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.'

'There is a time for work and a time for love. That leaves no other time.'

'Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.'

That's it from me.

See you tomorrow when i link up with Friday Smiles and will give you something to smile about.

Blessings,

Lisca

WOYWW 326 desk and building update

Good morning! 
This week has flown by! We always say that don't we. I think the older you get, the faster time flies!

I'm extra excited today as we are going away in our camper van later in the morning. We will have dinner (at about 2pm) in a nice restaurant on the way. So no cooking for me today.

This is my desk this morning before I prepare stuff to take with me to the camper.

 I had printed out some photos of my grandson and I was experimentally laying them on the 12x12 paper. In the background you can see the provisional shelving. There is a thermos of ice cold drink and the yellow book on the left is my Spanish dictionary which I'm using less and less now that I am more fluent.

By my dictionarey are a few pieces of printed paper left over from the lay out that i finished this weekend:

The piece of Kraft paper sticking out from under the layout is my attempt to a zentangle that I saw on Shoshi's page recently.

The house build is coming on nicely. Here is a photo of our house from a distance. I've tried to annotate it, I hope it's not too small. 

The entrance to the cave house is by the vine. That is a small court yard and the main entrance is there. The cave house itself obviously is not visible as it is built inside the 'mountain'. Where it says 'roof terrace', is the roof of the cave, which has earth so I'm growing plants as you can see. The terrace is also the street level at the back. The apartment at the bottom is not finished. We park our car there at the moment. That apartment is all on one level so that is for when we are old and grey.... The apartment at the top will hopefully be ready at Christmas. That one has an upstairs bedroom. I don't mind at the moment as we are both fit and well, thank the Lord.

I'm linking up with Whats on your workdesk Wednesday, organised by Julia. Want to know more? Go to her blog:http://www.stamping-ground.blogspot.com.es/

Have a good week everyone and I will try to visit as many of you as I can, but I usually take all week to get through the list as I love reading and looking and clicking on what you are all doing.

Blessings,

Lisca

PS... Look what I just found!

Those of you who read my WOYWW post last week will know that I had lost a little birdie. I've just this minute found it! (on my desk, which I have turned upside down... don't ask me...)

A Postcard a Day 1 Sept 2015 T for Tuesday= T for grape juice

Good Morning, Good Tuesday!

I'm linking in with all you lovely T for Tuesday ladies (are there any males out there?).

We have a lot of grapes on the vine in our little courtyard outside the kitchen. I can't find the photo so I'll show you this little corner with DH on it (about to sweep the chimney, bless him). There must be at least 100 bunches of grapes hanging there, waiting for something...

I've resurrected my old juicer. I might be 20 years old, I don't remember how long I have had it. It's called the Jack Lalanne power juicer. Expensive (£250 +) but sturdy and very good. 

I put a large bunch of grapes in the fridge every morning and in the afternoon when we are ready for a snack and a drink, I juice them. Yumm!

Get that down ya Babe!
Now, true to form, here is my postcard:

Nothing to do with T for Tuesday you'd say. But just wait until I show you the stamps....

Anyway, this is a card from Holland showing the Dutch royal family. King Willem Alexander with his wife queen Maxima, and three little princesses Amalia, Alexia and Ariane. It was sent to me by Melanie, who was studying speech therapy at the time  (Dec '13).

Here are the stamps:

The stamp on the right needs no comment other than: cheers! (or in Dutch: proost!)

The ones on the left are so called children's stamps. The added 19 cents go to childrens charities. The illustrations are from a very old childrens book called Ot and Sien. Ot en Sien are the main characters in a series of Dutch children's tales that were very popular in the first half of the 20th century. They were meant to expose young people to a (what was then considered) a healthy daily family life. The illustrations were made by Cornelis Jetses. In the above stamp you see Ot (the boy in the story) burning his mouth and being told off by his mother for drinking his milk before it was sufficiently cooled down. The bonus bit of the stamp has the little rhyme and an added image of a couple of modern children eating their snack or breakfast.

The illustrations by Jetses have enjoyed a revival and there have been many exhibitions of his work in recent years.

That's it for today. Tomorrow I will link up with Whats on your workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW),

See you then,

Blessings,

Lisca