A Postcard A Day - Friday 21 July 2017 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely people,


How are you? This blog (the Friday blog) is all about smiles and how every cloud has a silver lining and seeing things from the funny side. I hope you can see the funny side of me being late.... I completely forgot this morning, and before I knew it, it was afternoon! Hellooo!


I am going to link up with Annie at A Stitch In Time and I hope you will do too if you have a smile to share.


First off is my postcard:

 This one made me smile as I immediately recognized this as the traditional headdress of Walcheren, a part of Zeeland in the Netherlands. Nowadays only some old women dress in traditional style, which is a shame. Here there are lots of young women having fun in a meadow full of flowers. Reminds me of my childhood... Daisy chains and all that...


The next card made me smile for a different reason:

It is a romantic scene of (hopefully) a husband and wife enjoying some intimacy, but it probably is a couple of lovers, having a clandestine meeting at a hotel. I have a much too vivid imagination I guess.


This one came from Germany and the stamps are very colourful:

I love tulips.


We've had a very busy week. Hubby has been working very hard to get the bathroom and bedroom built before our friends from the UK arrived. He succeeded! Everything was lovely. The morning of their arrival we were still hanging up curtains! But they have been and gone and it was wonderful to see them again.

Here is our friends' daughter looking at trainers at the market.

And her younger brother posing on a cliff when we were on a walk.


We also saw this:

A flowering agave which I photographed just to play with my telelense. It was quite a distance away.


Another thing I spotted on our walk was this:

I should ask people to think of a caption....


Now for a few funnies:

I have often wondered the same thing....


That's my contribution for today.
Have a lovely weekend and a good week ahead.
Keep smiling!


Hugs,


Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 14 July 2017

Hello folks,
Happy Friday to you!
We have been hiding indoors for most of this week. I hardly dare go out, it is so hot! Even in the evening it is too hot to go for a walk. In the car it is bearable as we have air conditioning in the car.

Last night it was 42 degrees at 7pm and at 11 pm it was still in the 30s. At around 9 pm there was an almighty storm, strong (hot)winds, an occasional thunderclap and three drops of rain (I counted them). The stormy hot wind makes me feel nauseous. (Like walking into a hair dryer) Not nice. Anyway, enough of complaining about the weather. I't rather be too hot tan too cold.

What else have I been up to? The downstairs flat that my hubby is working on, is coming on nicely. We are expecting a family of four from the UK to visit on Monday, so the bedroom and the bathroom downstairs are now ready. It's lovely and cool down there and I think we will end up sleeping downstairs when our guests have left.

I also have the plan for the downstairs kitchen.

This is the carpenter's drawing. It is open plan with the living room and all I need to do now is go and choose the cabinet doors (style and color). I am excited as you can imagine.

This is the poster for the local yearly festival in our village. It was designed by one of my mates from the photoclub. There is always a competition, and her entry won. All the elements for which our village is known are there: The iron bridge

The old sugar factory

And the old tower

The marble colums (with the flamenco dancers) is a monstrosity on the entry roundabout into the village. I won't show you a photo of that as it is atrocious.

This is a very bad quality photo of a very sweet lady. She is my best friend's sister, who lives with them as she has Down Syndrome and can't live on her own. It was her 58th birthday the other day. She is such a sweety and loads of people turned up for her birthday bash! That was certainly the biggest smile of this week!

If you have something to smile about, (and who hasn't), please join Annie at A Stitch In Time.

Now for my postcard:

The town of Sopot is in Poland. Sopot is a fashionable resort on the Baltic sea. And no, you do not have to go to Specsavers (Sorry, UK joke) but this building is really crooked like this. It is called Krzywy Domek, which means crooked house.

Krzywy Domek was built in 2004. It is about 4,000 square meters (43,000 sq ft) in size and is part of the Rezydent shopping center.
It was designed by Szotyńscy & Zaleski, who were inspired by the fairytale illustrations and drawings of Jan Marcin Szancer and Per Dahlberg.
It was sent to me by Marek (don't know whether that is a female or male name). He/she has used a beautiful stamp:(I have no idea what the collection of patches is....)

The caption on this one reads: wickedness knows no limits.

With that I will leave you. I won't write a Tuesday blog as we are having visitors and I won't have time. So I'll see you all next week.

Have a good weekend and...

Keep smiling!

Hugs

Lisca



A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 11 July 2017 - T for green walnuts, Goethe and Elvenar

Hello folks, I hope you have all had a good weekend. 

And again we have arrived at Tuesday, When we can join Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T-party. Any blogpost with a drink related something in it will qualify.

Last Tuesday I received a bag with 40 Green walnuts. According to tradition, they should be harvested on San Juan (24 June) to make nut liquor, or Vino de nueces. I like mine with a bit of a kick so at the end I will add some brandy but the idea is to cut them up. Not easy as they are hard.

Then put them in a large container with 4 liters of wine.

Here is a bottle of two liters no-nonsense local wine, (and that is my drink related item for the T-party).

Now I just have to remember to stir it every day and add the sugar and brandy in August. It should be ready for Christmas.

I got some nice postcards this week. This one has a quote from Goethe: "There are two things we should give our children: roots and wings". A lovely quote and so true. 

Only the German speakers will 'get' the joke of the grand piano and the carrots on the chair.

The German word for roots (Wurzeln) is the same as the word for carrots. And the word Flügel means wings as well as grand piano.

The second postcard does not have the name of the artist on it, but it certainly has a charming postal theme. It made me smile.
Both these cards came from Germany and neither had an interesting stamp on them really.

Being retired I have the luxury of being able to play computer games. For a long time we played Cradle of Empires. I am getting a bit tired of it and it gets so much more difficult to progress. 
I have now discovered a new game that I like. It's called Elvenar.

 I don't have to do puzzles or fight battles (if I don't want to), but just building a most beautiful fantasy city, and growing and expanding by trading with neighbours (in the game) and the people in the fellowship you have joined (not compulsory). 

It is free but needs internet connection. There are in-game purchases but it works perfectly without that. I love it! I like the fact that there is a 'helper' guiding you through and helping and explaining, and giving you tasks. I also like the fact that there is always a choice between doing battle or negotiate/trade (As I don't like fighting).
I am enjoying it immensely.

That's it from me this T-Day,
Happy T-Day everyone,
Hugs,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 7 July 2017 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely people,
It is Friday again and time to look at the smiles during our week, and the silver lining around the not-so-smiley moments.


Here is a postcard that arrived this week that made me smile:

It came from Ukraine and was sent to me by Alena. The title of the card is: 'Singing old women'.
This is the stamp:

Olives plus an olive leaf. I suppose olive tres would grow in the southern part of the Ukraine and in the Crimea.


What have I done this week? Friday night we went out for a drink with our friends, but I forgot to bring my camera...
On Saturday I baked some cakes which I didn't immortalize. I'm not doing very well here.
I do have a photo of a super chicken cesar salad that I made last week. (Well, you can't see the chicken, but there was loads of it underneath the top layer.) It was very delicious:

Yesterday a neighbour brought us a bag of yellow fruit. Not sure if they were apricots or yellow plums. Anyway, I made a batch of jam with that. I got 8 jars out of that. Thank you Serafin!

We had a Little visitor recently. My hubby spotted him on the Wall next to the front door:

I think it is called a praying mantis. I should have put something next to him for size. He was a long as my thumb more or less, and didn't seem at all disturbed. He must know that our house is a house of prayer (as we pray a lot).


My cousin in Holland sent me the following two photos after she had gone for a walk in Scheveningen (The coastal town next to The Hague).

 Aren't these fun! Remember?

I remember all of those. My mum & dad had a radio like the one bottom left. I wonder if they are still in working order? The TVs seem to be playing.


Lets have a few laughs:

And in the same vein:

A realistic typical teenager mannequin....


With that I'm going to leave you.
Have a fab weekend and a good week after that.
Keep smiling!
Hugs,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 4 July 2017 - T for Washington, orange shirts and Amish

Hello everyone!

Happy Independance Day to our friends across the ocean. Because of this I want to start by showing you a card from the USA which I received yesterday morning. It's from the state of Washington and shows the West Point Lighthouse. I think it is beautiful!

She also uses pretty stamps. Look at these beauties:

A train called Congressional (I think) and one commemmorating the 1980  Olympics. I love the Norman Rockwell stamp, as he is such a good illustrator. And the arctic fox is beautiful.

I'm going to join the T for Tuesday tea party and I have something with a drink in it to share with you.

We had our last day at the gym on Friday. We stop for the summer. The gym is not air conditioned (or heated) and it is just too hot. (Too Darn Hot - a song by Ella Fitzgerald. Remember that one?)
I go three times a week. We have a nice group of ladies there. This is the gym building and many ladies are just leaving.

This is the whole building:

We have just taken receipt of out new orange shirts.

That Friday, after the session, at 10 a.m. we all went to have breakfast together. 

Here we are. The teacher is at the head of the table.

This is the typical Spanish breakfast: coffee and a 'tostada' (toast with olive oil and a sort of tomato sauce, which you spoon onto the bread from the bowl provided.)

What else can I tell you? What have I read? I have just finished one of the Amish romances in between one thing and another. They are usually very sweet and undemanding and free of charge on Kindle.
This one I just finished. It's called The Fiddler by Beverly Lewis:

It's just as well I don't get to see the cover when I buy a book on Kindle. I would never have bought it if I had seen this cover! But the story wasn't bad. I read it in a weekend. It's about a career violinist who rethinks her future after she had to shelter from the storm and had long talks with a young Amish man. It is the first of a series, but I don't see myself reading any more of them. I get the picture. Pleasant nevertheless.

Well, I'd better post this now.
Happy T-Day to all,
(And happy Independance Day)
Hugs,
Lisca

Second on the second - A blog post from 2014 revisited - Portugal

Hi everyone,
This is a blogpost from July 2014. (I'm posting this as a 2nd of the 2nd.) We haven't been to Portugal this year (I like to go there to buy wine) so I'll have to make do with the sweet memories.


Here goes: 

I haven’t blogged for a while because I've been away from my computer. It’s holiday time in the northern hemisphere and my husband and I drove to the Algarve in Portugal. A beautiful part of the world!

We went to the westernmost cape and looked over the ocean (nothing between here and America).

There’s a sort of fortress as in olden days this point was of strategic value.

We stayed in this beautiful villa with DS and DD-in-Law plus children. 

When the children had gone to bed we could relax and put our feet up with some supper.

One of the highlights was a boat trip along the coast to see the caves.

 Gorgeous beyond words.

This ice cream parlour had been there for donkey’s years and there was a black and white photo of the proprietors on the wall in the shop. Interesting....

The ice cream was lovely but this part of Portugal is renowned for its fish. 

We went to a brilliant fish restaurant and had a fantastic meal.

Thank you for your interest in what’s going on in my life.

Hugs,

Lisca