A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 9 June 2020 - T for streetcars, sacks and broom

Hello lovely ladies,

Here we are again, joining Elizabeth and Bluebeard for the T-Party. I have a drink, which I will show you a bit further down. 

First I'd like to show you two postcards. The first comes from Russia and shows Emperor Nicholas II. He is a fine looking young man, who came to a sticky end. 

Wikipedia writes: Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov (18 May 1868 – 17 July 1918), was the last Emperor of All Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign the Russian Empire fell from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. He was reviled by Soviet historians as a weak and incompetent leader whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects. By contrast Anglo-Russian historian Nikolai Tolstoy, leader of the International Monarchist League, said in 2012, "There were many bad things about the Czar's regime, but he inherited an autocracy and his acts are now being seen in perspective and in comparison to the terrible crimes committed by the Soviets." 

The stamps are beautiful. In particular the large one 
on the right

It was issued on September 05, 2014, in a series of World Cultural Heritage of Russia - It is the Church of the Ascension of Christ in Kolomenskoye,  the exceptional Ascension church (1532), built in white stone to commemorate the long-awaited birth of an heir to the throne, the future Ivan the Terrible. Being the first stone church of tent-like variety, the uncanonical "White Column" (as it is sometimes referred to) marked a stunning break from the Byzantine tradition.

Kolomenskoye  is a former royal estate situated several kilometers to the southeast of the city center of Moscow, Russia, on the ancient road leading to the town of Kolomna (hence the name). The 390 hectare scenic area overlooks the steep banks of the Moskva River. It became a part of Moscow in the 1960s.

My second card comes from the USA. It was sent to me by Ernesto, who lives close to San Francisco.

I love the old posters. This one is an original poster by Lantern Press. (No date given).

My mum celebrated her 96th birthday on the 5th. There are still travel restrictions so neither my sister nor I have been able to visit her. But we spoke on the phone (no she doesn't 'Zoom'. Her eyesight is too bad to be able to find it on her computer). One of my cousins was visiting her when I phoned and took a picture as I was talking to her. 

Note her large talking wrist watch (as she is practically blind).

Last week we went to a place in our village that sells hessian sacks. (The big heaps are almonds)

 They are old coffee beans sacks from Ivory coast and Colombia. 

They look new but they must have been used at some stage as these raw beans fell out of one of them.

A few days later hubby and I went to a friend's farm to collect horse manure (dried). It was a question of digging it up with a spade from the paddock. 

Then we went to his carpentry workshop to fill some sacks with saw dust, which is going to be used as mulch.

 We collected three sacks of manure and five of saw dust.

The broom in in full flower. Yellow everywhere you look. I looks very bright. 

This plant is called broom for obvious reasons: they used to make brooms with the dried bush. It is better visible on the next photo.

 In the USA it is an imported species and as such very invasive. So if you live in the USA and see these shrubs, it means bad news, as they are difficult to get rid of.

Yesterday, I have been able to source a large picture frame. One of the large Chinese hypermarkets has opened again. And voilá, I have been able to frame one of my jigsaw puzzles. Needless to say I am very pleased. I would like to buy one frame a month (funds permitting) as I have many jigsaws ready.

Now for my T-Party qualifier: It's a 'tea' called Noches Magicas, which means Magic Nights. 

 Ingredients: Redbush, green anise, camomile, Penny Royal mint, Rosemary, Rose Petals, Liquorice and Ginger.

We bought it at our local Lidl supermarket and we like it a lot. So yesterday we went to buy more, but they had sold out already. I should have bought more at the time!

That's it folks. Wishing you all a very happy T-Day.
Hugs,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 5 June 2020 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely girls,

Today is Friday Smiles and we join Annie at A Stitch In Time with whatever made us smile this week.

I've had a lot to smile about. And one of the things that always makes me smile is a postcard in my mail box. This week I feature this card from France as it makes me think of holidays. It is a map of a part of France that we know well. It is in Western Brittany and some of you might have been there too. Brittany is very beautiful.

 The card was sent to me by Stephanie, who lives in that area. She tells me that she likes books by Joel Dicker, Gillian Flynn and Liane Moriarty. 
The stamp commemorates the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Paris at the end of WWII.

Last week we had bought a gas water heater, and hubby has been busy installing it. He is allowed to do this as we don't have natural gas, but only butane bottled gas. This type of water heater is especially made for bottled gas.

 The water heater is an outdoor one (cheaper and besides, there is no room in the kitchen) and he installed it next to the front door.

 Sunday is the Lord's day and most of the day is dedicated to Him. We watched Kings Church Windsor on live streaming for their Sunday morning service. In the evening we joined a local group as we are now allowed to socialize more. We stayed outside, with a bit of distancing too.

On Monday hubby made a little door to hide the water heater and put a lock on it so it doesn't 'walk'. I had lots of smiles hearing (and seeing) the goats from our terrace. They come round every evening, but this evening they were much closer.

Normally when I have my oncology appointment, I go  straight from oncology to the appropriate departments to make the appointments for next year. This time I had a telephone consultation with the oncologist so they sent me all the paperwork by post and I had to then go to the hospital to make the next appointments. I didn't want to do that during the lockdown, but decided that now would be OK. So I did that on Tuesday. 

Another big smile was a great photo of my son and grandson, who are enjoying time on the beach. They live in Italy not far from the beach, so they always rent a spot (Plus parasol and chairs) for the whole season.

We are nearing the time that we will move downstairs to the summer area of our house. So the big spring clean has started. Our biggest problem are the weevils that get into the flour. So the pantry gets disinfected completely and re-painted. In the photo you see two tables with all the items that were still in the downstairs pantry. Hubby was painting, while my job was to check dates and throw away what we don't want or what is out of date.

On Thursday I finally got round to taping my jigsaw as we are now going to find someone who can make a frame (I wish I lived nearer to an Ikea, they have ready-made large picture frames)

That was my week.  I will try to find some funnies to put at the bottom, but for now I will sign off.
Bye for now,
Hugs,
Lisca

Talking about food..... Wednesday 3 June 2020

Good morning, buenas días, goodday,

I was introduced to Sherry's picking this morning, and thought: this is just my cup of tea, so I decided to join you on the spur of the moment.

Let me introduce myself: My name is Lisca and I am a Dutch woman living in southern Spain.  I have lived in Italy for 15 years, where I acquired my love for good, honest home cooked food.
I cook all my meals from scratch and we try to eat healthily. (We try to avoid processed food).  My husband and I go through phases of types of food. We go vegan for a month at least once a year and I am always looking out for new recipes and new cooking adventures. 

We have a plot of land which my husband has started to cultivate this year. So far (we are now at the end of spring) we have harvested broad beans and spinach and peas. Here is a row of broad beans:

 Hubby brought back a haul of peas and spinach:

 Broad beans and spinach:

 Too much to eat ourselves, so after we have given away quite a bit, the rest gets blanched and put in the freezer:

 This month we also bought some tomato plants (we were too late to plant seeds):

Although I did manage to plant some chili pepper seeds in these incubator things that i bought specially (I don't know what they are called). 

A month has passed since I planted the seeds and they have all come up and are about an inch high now.

When I look back at my photos, there are not many of my meals. I will try to remember to take more pictures.
Here is a pork stew I made:

We are a couple that enjoys breakfast. I know in many families they skip breakfast, but we like our breakfast too much to do that. (Being retired will have something to do with that I suppose). 

On Saturdays we usually have pancakes:

Here we have microwaved the blueberries a bit so they go all soft and gooey. On other occasions we have oat pancakes or American pancakes (raised, small ones).

My husband is British, so on occasion we have 'brunch' and he will cook us a 'Full English Breakfast', which consists of bacon and eggs on toast with baked beans and plum tomatoes.

I also love baking and used to bake at least one or two cakes a week. But with the restrictions we have had, there is nobody to cook cakes for, as we are not going anywhere and we have no visitors so far. 

But I have been challenged to start a Herman Friendship cake. It's where you make a dough starter which has to be stirred every day and fed occasionally. At the end it becomes more like a sourdough starter. Anyway, after 10 days, I baked a cake and gave part of the dough away:

This one is apple and walnut.

I hope I can write a blog about food once a week and I will try to include at least one recipe. At least this is a start.

Stay safe, stay healthy,
Keep cooking!
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 2 June 2020 - T for Tuesday and Second on the 2nd

Hello lovely ladies.

How are you all? Today we are invited to the T-Party hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard, and on top of that, it is also the second of the month so we also share an old blogpost.

First off is my postcard for today

It comes from Finland and it is a black and white image of a female soldier, but there is no date to indicate from which era this photo was taken. It was sent to me by Kaisa, who lives in Helsinki and tells me that she visited the Lotta Museum. This museum is all about the history of Finland. If I am not mistaken, Finland has just celebrated its 100th birthday. I hadn't realized that it is such a new country.

The stamps are beautiful. I have no idea what the angry young man making rude gestures is supposed to represent, and I have no time to look it up as I am late as it is. Sorry.

My 'ticket' for the T-Party is this photo, taken by one of my friends in the photo club. It pictures a cup of (I assume coffee) on a balcony overlooking our nearby little town of Baza.

This is where I will be going as soon as I have this blogpost sent into the ether: Baza. I'm going to order some new fly screens. I have taken the measurements and I will choose and order them so I will be ready for summer.

Below I will show you a blogpost from June 2015. We had been travelling (oh delight!) and you will see the arched windows of the house (Next door) we are now living in. 

Wishing you all a very happy T-Day,

Stay healthy,

Hugs,

Lisca

SECOND ON THE SECOND:

Hi folks! Sorry I had to miss last week, we were still travelling through Europe. We've now finally arrived home (Thursday). Oh its good to be home! I'm still not completely sorted out and I haven't washed everything, but hey, easy does it.

                      

 Here is the photo of my desk. No project on the go as yet. (although I should be making a card for the first birthday of one of our grandchildren) Instead you can see two scrapbook albums with page protectors that I bought in the UK. In the foreground is some artwork by Hannah Dunnett, whose work I love.

Work on our house is continuing and we now have window frames in both arches. Hopefully the glazier will put glass in soon.

I've had to stop Postcrossing the two months I was travelling but I'm back in the swing of sending and receiving postcards again. Here is one of the cards I received. I love turtles and tortoises, so I really love this card. 

Today was the first sunny and warm day after a cold spell. I'm sitting in the shade of the vine.  Our neighbour pruned it (the vine) properly at the right time of year and the right position of the moon etc. Look at the abundance of baby grapes growing!

That's it from me today. Hopefully I'll have a more interesting page next time.

Have a great week everyone, 

God bless,

Lisca