A postcard a Day - Sunday 11 Oct 2015

Good Morning! Good Sunday!

Are you having a lie-in today? We don't get up early on a Sunday morning. And when we do, my husband cooks scrambled eggs on toast for our breakfast. Yummy! Then we leave for church at 20 to eleven. That's our morning routine. What is yours?

The other morning routine is that i post a postcard of a church on the Sunday morning.

Today my card is from Russia:

It is a photo from 1900, and it features Maroseyka street in Moscow with the Dormition church in the back ground.

The wooden Dormition Church on Pokrovka Street originates from 1511 to be rebuilt in stone in 1656. In 1936 the Church was demolished as the part of the building blocked the roadway.

A tram we see on this card is a horse-drawn tram. The cars were bought in England and had an imperial (space on the roof where people could also sit) and a staircase to climb up. Imperials were not protected from rain and snow.

I have to go now, I'm sorry.... didn't get up early enough!

Have a lovely peaceful Sunday.

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Saturday 10 Oct 2015 Holland Denmark

Good Morning! Are you having a good weekend? We are both retired so every day is a weekend really....

I'm showing you two cards today. The first one is of Amsterdam, Netherlands because i have just booked some flights to Holland to spend Christmas with my mother.

It is a typical view of a Dutch canal. (In this case it is the Brouwersgracht).
The stamp is interesting.

It celebrates 200 years since the Battle of Waterloo, in which the king of the Netherlands, King Willem II, played a major role.

The second card is from Denmark because from Amsterdam we fly to Copenhagen in the New Year to visit our friends. This is the only card I have from Denmark:

It is the Danish royal family. The older couple are Queen Margarethe and Prince consort Henrik. The younger couple are crown prince Frederik and crown princess Mary. The two youngest children are twins. They are 4 years old. I don't know their names.

The stamps are very interesting too:

The large stamp on the right celebrates 200 years Danish schools. And the middle one, a character from the stories by Hans Christian Andersen: Numskull Jack.

I'm very excited to be going to Copenhagen as I have never been to Denmark. Our friends live in Zealand, an hour away from the capital.

That's all from me today. Have a great weekend and see you tomorrow,

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Friday 9 Oct 2015 Friday Smiles

Good Morning! 

I didn't do a blog yesterday. I felt so tired I had a sleep day. Do you ever feel like that? 

But today I feel fine again and I can share a few things with you all. The weather here is on the turn. I still wear sandals and T-shirts but in the evening we certainly need a cardigan or jacket. Today it started to rain just as we started to eat and we had to stop and put table and chairs indoors. (Yes, we still eat outside). This is what we had today: bubble and squeak! 

A typical English winter dish! But my DH fancied it, so I went: 'Your wish is my command', got some leftovers out of the fridge and there we are. Very nice it was too!

And here is my postcard for today:

It was sent to me by Olga who lives in Moscow, Russia. She tells me she likes reading and that she is enjoying historical novels at the moment. I love the card. It shows how you can lose yourself in a book and visit a different world. The watch on the floor seems to indicate that time stops when you read. I'm into fantasy novels at the moment and have just finished reading the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb.

The stamps on this card are fabulous:

The stamp on the left is from a series called Culture of Russian People. It is a National Head dress - Middle of XIX Century, Nizhniy Novgorod Province.

The middle stamp is from the series of Kremlins (=fortifications). This one is the Kolomna Kremlin.

The triangular stamp on the right is from a series of decorative and applied art: Lace. 

I'm linking in with 'A stitch in time' for Friday smiles.
Here is my contribution

One of my Canadian relatives shared this with me. She is a quilter and cannot resist a piece of nice fabric!

That's it from me. 

Have a great week everyone.

See you tomorrow,

Blessings,

Lisca

WOYWW 331 Chaos is complete!

Hi Folks! I'm back again. We've been away. 

DD plus a grandson had come to stay and we had a hectic but great time.  We took them back to Malaga airport last Tuesday (a 3 hour drive). While we were on the coast, we thought we'd visit a few large stores that we haven't got near us. (like Ikea and Leroy Merlin etc). Then went to see my sister near Marbella. They have just moved into a new apartment so I hadn't expected to stay, but she had the guest room ready and she insisted so we stayed and had a lovely time.

Now we have returned to the chaos that is our 'house'. You are waiting to see my desk.... here it is:

  As you can see, there is nothing going on on my desk, but there is a bed in the office! Yes, our bedroom in the old cave house was getting really bad. The ceiling is un-rendered and we keep getting sand and earth flaking on the bed. It was getting so bad (and I got so fed up) that we made the decision to test drive the new bed-sofa that we bought (locally) last week:

 It's now in the 'studio' and we are sleeping on it. (and very comfortable it is too).

We did spend quite a lot of money at Ikea (as you do) and I have finally bought the famous trolley! In fact my husband made me buy two! He reckons I would like it so much I would want another one and he wasn't going to drive several hundred miles to get it.

All the mess and the chaos has been  getting to me a bit lately and I have been finding it difficult to give thanks. I have been taught to give thanks in every circumstance but that is difficult sometimes. 
The other day I was sent this on Facebook:

That's put me in my place! I've made a similar list (adapted to my circumstances) and I've stopped moaning and I thank the Lord!

Thanks for visiting, and if you are wondering what all this desk watching is all about, visit Julia's blog and all will be revealed.

Have a good week,

blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a day - Tuesday 6 Oct 2015 T for Tuesday

T stands for cat participation....

Hi folks, good morning to you all. And good morning and happy Tuesday especially to all you alteredbooklovers who join in with T for Tuesday.

If the title seems a little weird, bear/bare? with me (don't know how to spell that). All will be reveiled.

Lets have a look at my postcard for today, then we have that out of the way.

 It's a postcard from Italy. A typical scene of a cafe in a piazza. This town is called Abbiategrasso in the province of Milan (northern Italy). I had chosen it because it is drink related, but then realized it has no drinks in the picture.....

Here are the stamps:

The stamp on the right is the most interesting. It reads: World Championship sport fishing.

We've had a busy week last week as daughter and grandson no1 visited for 6 days. We picked them up from the airport in Malaga (3 hour drive) and took them back again. It's a long drive so we break it up with a restaurant stop. 
Here is DH enjoying his meal. But look who is also rather interested in his meal: yes, lovely ginger kitty.

You can imagine what happened next... Kitty got fed all sorts of titbits under the table. The waiter kept shooing her/him away (this is al fresco dining), but we kept putting nice bits under the table.

At the end of the meal the waiter asked if we would take the cat with us. We said: Sorry, we already have about 6 stray cats living on our premises.

That was it from me today. Have a lovely week all of you.

See you soon,

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Monday 5 Oct 2015 Map Monday: Friesland

Good Morning! Good Monday!

Hope you have all had a good weekend and are back to normal with renewed enthusiasm.

I have a long 'to-do' list today which includes going to the gym, having my bloods taken at the health center and getting together with my girl friends for a prayer meeting. Of course I have to get our 'daily bread' at the baker and go to the post office and order some stamps. 

It's Monday and on that day I usually make a menu for the whole week, so i know what sort of things to look out for when we do our weekly shop later today. We have our main meal in the day, so that meal needs to be cooked. We eat at 3 pm, after which we (my DH and I) go grocery shopping. My DH comes with me as I can't drive our 'truck'. I can't reach the pedals!

I have two cards to show you today. They both show a part of Friesland. Here is a map to show you where it is:

The brown bits are Friesland (Frisia). Most of it is in Germany and the western part is in the Netherlands. They have their own language. I go to Friesland occasionally as my two cousins live there. Frisian is the official language there and all the street signs are in both Dutch and Frisian. 

Here is what Wikipedia writes about Frisians:

The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia (which was a part of Denmark until 1864). The Frisian languages are still used by 500,000 speakers; dialects of Frisian are recognized as official languages in both the Netherlands and Germany.

The above postcard is a satellite photo of North Friesland (the northern brown bit on the top map).  I recognize the island that looks a bit like a letter T.

This card is Eastern Friesland. (The middle brown bit on the top map). Like North Friesland, it is part of Germany.

I don't have a map card of the Dutch part of Friesland (yet).

The stamps are beautiful:

The cellist on the left celebrates 50 years of youth orchestras and the stamp on the right features the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. (Restored 18th century gate & landmark with 12 Doric columns topped by a classical goddess statue)

Two lovely flowers on the left are the Tulip and the Tagetes (Marigold). The stamp on the right is part of a series of light houses. This one is the lighthouse on Fehmarn Island (Schleswig-Holstein).

The famous Flügge lighthouse on Fehmarn Island's south-western peninsula is striking. It's been operating since 1916 and is almost identical to the Neuland lighthouse on Hohwachter Bay. It's 37 m tall, and was originally yellow with a red lantern. Since 1977 it has been covered in characteristic red-and-white glass plating.

That's it from me for today. It has become a bit long so well done if you are still with me!

See you tomorrow when I link up with T for Tuesday.

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Sunday 4 Oct 2015

Good Morning! Good Sunday!

Hope you are having a super weekend. We are still working hard to get the top floor of the new build ready so that we can move in in December. We had a (back) door made by a local carpenter and it arrived Friday. Now we need to wood stain and seal it. (a special protecting varnish).

Yesterday the new sofa bed we had bought more than a week ago was collected by my hubby and two friends. (To have it delivered would have cost quite a lot extra, so we waited until some friends were available yesterday. They kindly helped us get it in and out of the truck and up the stairs).

Now for my postcard: It's Sunday so of course it is going to be a church!
This is the basilica of Saint Quentin in northern France, sent to me by Didier.

 Saint-Quentin, which has about 60,000 inhabitants, was named after St Quentin, who was believed to have been martyred there in the 3rd century.

Because the town suffered substantial damage during the First World War (approximately 3/4 of the town was destroyed) a great deal of rebuilding was necessary when the war ended, and many buildings were built using the then-fashionable art deco style.

The basilica was badly damaged, but some beautiful Renaissance windows survived and others were replaced by attractive art deco windows.

This is the stamp on the card. It is from a series of art by grafitti artist Miss-tic. The text reads:  Le Masculin l’emporte mais ou?…..The male sex takes it away, but where?

That's it from me for today. 
Have a lovely peaceful Sunday and see you tomorrow,

blessings,

Lisca