A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 7 March 2023 - T for Traditional dress

 Hello lovely ladies,

Spring hasn't come yet and it is still cold here. And I'm going to show you a postcard I received and just looking at it will make you feel cold!

The card comes from Austria and looks like it is an old black and white photo of a snowy village. But it gives me no indication on the back where it might be. I does remind me of when I lived in Italy. It often snowed like this. I often had to dig myself out of the house before going to work.

The stamps are very interesting.

The yellow stamp shows the head dress of the Bodensee (Lake Constance):

The Lake Constance Radhaube, a wheel-shaped bonnet, is unique due to its ornaments, which are made of golden and silver threads of equal quality on either side. The bonnet is typically worn in combination with traditional (Austrian) dress (“Tracht”) on festive occasions such as dance performances or festivals.

It looks like a lace technique and it's very pretty.

Made with gold thread:

Amazing!

I have featured this stamp before but I don't mind showing you again as it is so extraordinary.

The stamp on the right dates from 2021 and features Murbodner Tracht (Tracht is traditional dress)

It confuses me a bit because Mulboden is a cattle breed, not a region (as far as I know... have I got any Austrian followers? Does anyone know?)

But the dress is pretty.

I've had a lovely week. On Tuesday my friends Kim and Andy came and I cooked a Mexican themed meal.

I had wheat flour tortillas, and a spicy chicken and pepper stir-fry with mexican spices and several little side dishes. 

Today we join the lovely ladies of the T-gang for T for Tuesday hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard. And my drink (white wine and a can of beer) is my qualifier.

On Wednesday I was preparing the guest room for my guests from Brazil. They arrived on Thursday. They had been to a business conference in Barcelona and then came to visit me for a couple of days.

I hadn't seen S since before Covid and I had never met his girl friend. She's lovely and we got on really well.

On Thursday night we went out to a local bar for some food:

The next morning I took T to the gym with me and here she is with my friend Patricia:

Thursday's fish meal inspired me to cook some fish on Friday. So I took them to the fish monger in the village:

S is a tall guy and here he is just trying to get a bit nearer my size.

We cooked fish in the oven with lots of chopped up veg.

This was the result (more drinks for the T-Party):

On Saturday we went to the lake as it was beautiful weather for a change.

You can see how low the water level is because of the drought. Normally the water nearly reaches the restaurant in the left background. 

The lake was a beautiful colour:

There is a restaurant overlooking the lake and of course we couldn't resist and went for something to eat there. We had lots of laughs as we were all in a good mood:

And here I am pouring some liquor in my coffee:

On Sunday morning they had to leave for the airport at some silly hour 4:30 in the morning!

Because we had meals out, I still had lots of food in the fridge. I had clams that I had bought on Friday and they needed to be cooked. So I made 'Linguine alle vongole', an Italian pasta dish that I love. 

I invited my lodger from upstairs as he was on his own too. 

Now it is Monday night and I am sat on the couch with my laptop and a glass of wine, plus nibbles and some spicy hummus. Yum!

That is all I have for now. 

Happy T-Day to all,

Keep smiling.

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 3 March 2023 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely ladies,

Have you been smiling this week? It's March, so spring is on its way! It won't be long now! The days are getting longer. Hang on in there!

Let me show you a colorful card:

The card comes to me from Russia and was sent by Jana who was very much looking forward to Christmas and New Year (She sent it just before Christmas).

I used Google translate on the card as I was curious what the writing says (but it doesn't all make sense...):

You might have gathered that she lives in Samara. It seems a large and beautiful city. It is a city of more than a million inhabitants (and I've never heard of it! )

The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara rivers. It has a population of over 1.14 million residents, up to 1.22 million residents in the urban agglomeration.

Formerly a closed city, Samara is now a large and important social, political, economic, industrial, and cultural centre in Russia and hosted the European Union—Russia Summit in May 2007. It has a continental climate characterised by hot summers and cold winters. The life of Samara's citizens has always been intrinsically linked to the Volga River, which has not only served as the main commercial thoroughfare of Russia throughout several centuries, but also has great visual appeal. 

Samara's riverfront is one of the main recreation sites for both local citizens and tourists.

The stamps are pretty

The stamp on the right is a painting by the artist Serebryakova. It is called 'At The Dressing Table', and is a self portret.

Zinaida Yevgenyevna Serebriakova; (12 December 1884 – 20 September 1967) was a Russian and later French painter. Zinaida Serebryakova was born on the estate of Neskuchnoye near Kharkov (now Kharkiv, Ukraine) into the artistic Benois family in the Russian Empire. n 1905, she married her first cousin, Boris Serebryakov, and took his surname. Boris went on to become a railroad engineer. 

Serebryakova's most famous self-portrait, At the Dressing-Table (1909, Tretyakov Gallery), was painted while she was snowed in at her family home and models from a nearby village were unable to travel there. Her brother Evgenii encouraged Serebryakova to enter the painting in an exhibition mounted by the Union of Russian Artists in 1910, where it was received with enthusiasm and purchased for the Tretyakov Gallery collection.

After the outbreak of the October Revolution in 1917, Serebriakova's life changed. In 1919, her husband Boris died of typhus. She was left without any income, responsible for her four children and her sick mother. All the reserves of Neskuchnoye had been plundered, so the family suffered from hunger. She had to give up oil painting in favour of the less expensive techniques of charcoal and pencil. This was the time of her most tragic painting, House of Cards, which depicts their four fatherless children.

In the autumn of 1924, Serebriakova went to Paris, having received a commission for a large decorative mural. On finishing this work, she intended to return to the Soviet Union, where her mother and the four children remained. However, she was not able to return, and although she was able to bring her children, Alexandre and Catherine, to Paris in 1926 and 1928 respectively, she could not do the same for her two other children, Evgenyi and Tatiana, and did not see them again for many years.

In 1947, Serebriakova at last took French citizenship, and it was not until Khruschev's Thaw that the Soviet Government allowed her to resume contact with her family in the Soviet Union. 

Self portrait in 1956, although the photo might not be of that year.

In 1960, after 36 years of forced separation, her older daughter, Tatiana (Tata), was finally allowed to visit her. At this time, Tatiana was also working as an artist, painting scenery for the Moscow Art Theatre.

What have I been up to this week? Well Tuesday was Andalucia Day. I have written about our country in my Tuesday blog. Our local women's association here in the village received a prize during a ceremony (that I didn't go to, but I have a photo) 

We are all very proud of our association as we are only a small village but we have a large and very active women's association.

My friends Kim and Andy have come over for a meal and a Spanish lesson and a chat. I had prepared a meal with a Mexican theme:

Kim had prepared a spicy oven bake.

Very nice it was too.

That's it from me. Have you got any smiles to share? Head over to Annie at A Stitch In Time.

I will put some funnies at the end of this blog.

Have a lovely weekend,

Keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca

Second on the 2nd - Thursday 2 March 2023 -

 Hello lovely ladies,

Today I am showing you a post from March 2016. We were still building our house and the photos you see are of the top floor apartment, where we lived for a few years and then moved downstairs to the ground floor when my husband was ill. I still live downstairs and have a lodger in the top flat. 

A Postcard A Day - Friday 18 March 2016 Friday Smiles

Good morning folks. It's Friday today and as always the week has flown by. I have gathered many of the positive moments of this week and I mean to link up with Annie at A Stitch In Time and with Virginia at Rocking My World Friday .

This post is photo heavy as I have much to show you.
First my postcard of today:

It is a card by my favorite illustrator Inge Löök. The two mad old ladies always make me smile. Here they are youwling with the cats on the roof at full moon. They also seem to be sweeping gold coins from the roof. I'm not sure what that is about. There is a symbol of the Red Cross charity in the corner, so perhaps it has something to do with that. 

The caption reads Happy Easter in Finnish. It was sent to me by Anne who writes that it was -4.2 degrees Centigrade (on the first of March). She writes: "We have 2 cats and a dog. I'm always happy and positive thinking. I love my life! I wish all good for you. Terveisin, Anne". (Terveisin translates as 'regards')

The flat is coming on and DH has been putting up lamps.

These lamps I brought back from Holland a few years ago. They match the large center lamp in the living room. But that one is not hanging up yet as the chain is not long enough. I'll show it when it´s up.

These three lights are for the terrace.

And this bulkhead light too.

Here I am posing by the new lights (hardly visible against the busy back ground).
The thingamajigs in between the tiles are spacers. DH has just finished tiling the terrace. They will be removed tomorrow.

Another thing that made me smile this week is a pick-up truck load of firewood. There's nothing more satisfying than knowing you have enough firewood to keep you warm in winter. 

Our stocks were low so we decided to get one more load. This is olive wood. We do not have central heating and every room has its stove. My craft room/living room has a wood burner and we still fire that up every day as I am a cold mortal.

 I have also treated myself to Photoshop PSCS6. It will be my 65th birthday on Wednesday and this is an early birthday present.  I'm having a go at digital scrapbooking. I'm doing a free online course with The Scrapaneers. It's quite complicated as the course is with Photoshop Elements which is not exactly the same as PS. On top of that, my Photoshop program is in Spanish, so it's taking me ages to figure out what to do. (Yes, I am taking notes).

Finally here are a few funny bar signs:

 Always read the small print!

And if you remember your chemistry...

That's it from me today. Sorry it has become quite along photo heavy post, so if you made it to down here I really appreciate that.

Have a good week,

Blessings,

Lisca