A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 11 August 2020 - T for ...

 

A giant teapot-shaped sculpture in the air in Zunyi City, northern China.

This photo shows the three-ton, four-metre high teapot pouring water out into a pool.

According to reports, there is a steel pipe, 50cm in diameter, inside the water column that supports the teapot. A pump was installed in the pool, that can pump the water up into the teapot continuously.

Hello lovely ladies, 

It's T-time again! Let's visit Elizabeth and Bluebeard (and Squiggles too) who host ,the by now famous, T-Party. Please join us with a blog post that has a drink, or drink reference in it. 

Let me start with my post card. It comes from the USA and it features this fine fella. He is a young male bullfrog, painted in watercolor by a Swiss gentleman named Karl Bodmer  (1809-1893) in 1832. You can find the original in the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha.

Karl Bodmin sailed to the US with the German Prins Maximilian and they traveled around from 1832-1834 documenting everything they saw. One winter was spent in Fort Clark in North Dakota, where the Mandan Indians lived. 

He painted Mato-Tope, a Mandan chief.

The stamps are beautiful. The one on the left shows agricultural land, but in my imagination, it could well have been the prairies of North Dakota.

What else can I tell you. Well, we went to the local garden centre last week. I needed a few more plants for my patio. I ended up with a trolley full of stuff (as you do):

I surprised myself by buying a beautiful cactus. That 'thing' with the hanging fronds.

Here it is hanging  on my wall. It's called a Selenicereus Validus. It needs an arid and hot climate. So perfect for here.

Every Monday and Friday I spend time with my friend walking. Sometimes we stop to have a freshly squeezed orange juice. Not every bar does it, as not every bar has the appropriate machine to do it, but our local Bar Navarro makes lovely orange juice.

I have been making a lot of cards this week as we have lots of birthdays and anniversaries in the family this month. My son, and my twin stepchildren were all born on the same day in August, one daughter-in-law and one son-in-law have their birthdays too. 

Hubby and I will celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary this weekend. We have booked a fish and chips supper at a bar in Baza. They do this once a month, and it is strictly bookings only. That is better than having to drive all the way to the coast for some fish and chips (the English way). I'm greatly looking forward to this date night with hubby. Photos next week.

I digress... I wanted to tell you about the cards I made. Of course I can't show you them as the recipients might read this. But I have made one thank you card for a Spanish lady, who will not read my blog:

Sorry for the bad lighting. I wanted to scan it but the scanner wants me to re-boot my computer. Well, I'm not going to do that. Much quicker to take a photo. The elements are fussy cut and layered. The word 'gracias' is a stamp.

It's nearly midnight and I am pouring myself a drink. It's called Pastis (French). I pour a small measure on top of some ice cubes and then fill the glass with fizzy water. The drink will then change colour and become cloudy. It tastes of anis. Cheers!

I think I'll leave it at that. 

Wishing you all a very happy T-Day,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 7 August 2020 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely ladies,

Here I am again on Friday to show you the smiles of my week. Join us if you can and link up with Annie at 'A Stitch In Time' with the silver lining of each day.

For me the highlight of the week is always a happy mailbox. This week I have received several cards. One of them came all the way from Romania. The first card from Romania that I have received I think.

It features a cute little girl from the Maramures area of Romania.

It was sent to me by Ionut, who writes some nice facts about his country:

I found some images on Wikipedia of some of the places mentioned. Here is a village in the Maramures area:

Like it comes straight out of a fairytale.

Then there are the painted monasteries of Bucovina:

Beautiful!

How about the Carpathian Mountains:

Wow! What a beautiful country!

They have beautiful stamps too:

Add caption

We all know the daffodil on the left, but the man in the middle of course, I didn't know. He is

Nichita Stănescu, born 31 March 1933 was a Romanian poet and essayist. He was a heavy drinker and died at the age of 50 on 13 December 1983.

The figure on the right is:

Dimitrie Paciurea, born 2 November (1873 or 1875) – 14 July 1932 was a Romanian sculptor. His representational and symbolic style contrasts strongly to the more abstract style of his contemporary and co-national Constantin Brâncuși. This is one of his sculptures called Earth:

I've had a good week and as per usual I will show you my daily collages.

Our neighbour and friend Shaune, who lives in France, lets us use his pool and pool house at the bottom of the village. It's visible from our house but we have to walk to it. It is guarded by two huge dogs, who we know very well, so they are no trouble. (another neighbour feeds the dogs) and the dogs are not allowed to come into the pool area, but they are inside the outer fence.

I got a phone call to say my sister had fallen (on her face, literally). She lives in the UK, so I can't help her. But she did go to A&E and got patched up. The good news is that she has not broken anything.

Sunday is our church day. We follow two services online, then have a cel-group zoom meeting and in the evening we go and worship with a group of men at the Ebenezer farm.

Monday I go walking with my friend, this time we walked in the direction of the herb 'factory'.  Most herbs that you regularly use in the kitchen are grown there, dried and sold on. But they also do essential oils of said herbs. My friend bought several types. Especially a strong type of thyme, that is good for the lungs. I put a drop on my mask. Lovely. Next week I want to get some myself (I didn't have any money on me of course)

Monday I went to the town hall with some British local friends to translate, as they had to deal with something important. Although they speak a little Spanish themselves, they asked if I could come with them so that they don't miss anything.

As you can see I made a clafoutis with cherries. Very yummy it was too. We had it with some vanilla ice cream. (Hubby had more ice cream than clafoutis!)

My font colour has unexpectedly changed to blue and I don't seem to be able to change it back to black (Amy Winehouse song haha), and also the underlining won't go, so you'll have to bear with me on that.On Wednesday we made the decision to cancel our ferry. We were supposed to sail to Portsmouth on the 25th. There still is a two week quarantine imposed for travelers from Spain, so that is no good. The camp site have let us know that we cannot use our caravan as a quarantine address, so we have been able to re-book the ferry for the same dates next year. It was easy to do via a chat screen. At least we did not lose any money. 

So yesterday we went to the garden centre and bought some more plants. One of them was this cactus. It's called Selenicereus Validus. It's an outdoor plant very suited to this climate. But we might have to take it inside if there is frost coming.Of course I will put some funnies at the end again.Well my luvlies, that's it from me today Wishing you all a very happy Friday and a great weekend,Keep smiling!Hugs,Lisca

Non British visitors will not understand this without the knowledge that the name on the bag is a large chain of sex shops.

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 4 August 2020 - T for Postcards, postcards and more postcards!,

Hello lovely girls. It's time for the T-Party again. I'm going to join Elizabeth and Bluebeard who are hosting this party. Come and join us with a beverage. My beverage is way down this blog post as I have so many lovely postcards to share with you. 

I received quite a little pile of them with beautiful stamps:

There was also a large envelope post-marked Wichita. Yes, you've guessed, it was happy mail from Elizabeth! Look at this! 

I know you have all received similar gifts. I love the serviette, as it has the word Fiesta on it. As our annual fiesta has been cancelled/banned, I have put this serviette on the table as a sort of substitute fiesta. Thank you Elizabeth for this lovely surprise. 

She especially added two postcards, as she knows I collect them. This is the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattenooga.

And here is an image from the Internet to show you what it looks like in the daytime.

Then Elizabeth sent me this card too. It is from Chihuahua, in Mexico. It is a vintage card (look at the cars).

The sky-line hasn't changed that much though. I got this image from Wikipedia, and it shows the same view. The right hand part of the above postcard is visible in the photo below. The tower block is now red and a new building has been built on the right hand side. 

One of the postcards I collected from the post office last week (see top photo) comes from Malaysia, and was sent by Nurul. She tells me that this card was the second card she sent because the first one never arrived.

The card shows lots of beautiful Malay stamps and the real stamps on the back are awesome too.

Then I went to the post office on Friday.

Lo and behold there was another post card from Malaysia, and it was the missing card from Nurul! 

It is really lovely. Lots of little dolls with the national costume of many South East Asian countries. Thank you Nurul.

The stamps on this card are gorgeous. The two stamps on the left celebrate the 50th World  Children's Day, which in Malaysia is celebrated on the 4th Saturday in October (I have been told).

The red stamp is from a series of Millennium stamps from 1999. It shows ceramic pots and Mount Kinabalu.

This is the whole series:

What have I been up to? Not much. It is hot here:

Our neighbour has a lovely pool, but he lives abroad. So he kindly lets us use the pool when we want. 

We sometimes go down there on an evening. Here we are having supper. And this is also my entry ticket to the T-Party.

Yes, I did swim. (The building in the back ground is the pool house)

Hubby getting wet. Our village is seen in the back ground.

You might have noticed that I am working in the 'new' Blogger format. I have yet to discover how to delete photos, so you will see a selection of mini photos where I have added them by mistake and consequently made them as small as possible. Sorry. It looks untidy. Can't be helped.

Well, that's it from me. 

I wish you all a very happy T-Day.

Take care,

Hugs,

Lisca