A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 11 April 2017 - T for Italy and China

Good Morning All!

How are you today? It being Tuesday I have  some drink (and food) related stuff to share as well as a postcard.

The postcard comes from China:

I don't really know what it represents.. (No, it's not a flied egg!). The sender does not write anything on the back apart from 'Greetings from Shenzhen'. I have found out that Shenzhen is next to HongKong. The card was posted on the 17th of February and has come via surface mail, which takes a long time, but is probably cheaper to send. (I received it this week).
The stamps are beautiful:

Each is different. 

Now I'm going to join the T-party at Elisabeth and Bleubeard's. Our Danish neighbours use their house as a holiday home and they come five times a year. (It's cold in Denmark while here it's warmer and the sun shines). They were here last week and we went out in the nearby town where there is a pizzeria.

Here we are outside the restaurant when I shout: stop!  I need to take a picture! Hubby is holding my bag while I click away.

So we went in and sat down.

Mine is a white wine:

This was the salad:

There were so many types of pizza, it was difficult to choose:

This one had spicy chorizo on it.

Another view of the restaurant, this time without my glass of wine in it.

Here is another pizza:

I think this was mine. Very tasty. And thin and crispy, as it should be. They had an authentic wood fired oven:

There was lots of pizza left, so we had it all put in a box and we took it home. I individually wrapped each pizza quarter and stuck it in the freezer, so I can have a snack when I feel like it.

That is it from me today. 
Happy T-Day all,
Hugs,
Lisca

PS. Elisabeth, I don't seem to be able to comment on your blog. But I really liked the little 'maranitos' (marano = pig). I have never seen them here.
Your ceramic houses are very beautiful. (and useful too). Thank you for sharing those things.

A Postcard A Day - Friday7 April 2017 - Friday smiles

Hello everyone,

Here we are at the end of the week again. It goes so fast I can'tbelieve it.

What have I been up to that made me smile this week?

Well on Friday evening we went to this gypsy wedding. The gypsies in our village are very poor, so this was a very modest do, held at the local bar.

Here is me in my posh clobber with the bride and groom.

Now on Saturday I do my baking. I love baking so I smile a lot. Then when people eat what I have made (and like it) it makes me smile a second time.

This Saturday I made lots of savoury things. I made (amongst other things) this savoury 'tart'.

Sundays is taken up with church and evening house church, but in the afternoon I was able to sit in the sun and read. I have finished the book I was reading: Of Windmills and War by Diane Moody

About an American B17 bomber pilot during WW2 (based on the memoires of the author's father) who has a penfriend from the Netherlands. He ends up being involved in operation Chowhound/Manna (dropping food on the starving Dutch). I found this book very interesting. Not only is it a good story with a little bit of romance thrown in, but it affirmed all the stories my parents (in Holland) have of the 'hunger winter' and the food droppings at the end of the war.  Recommended.

On Monday we went to our other house, as we always do on Monday. This time I had planned to cook sausage, beans and mash. Well, I forgot to bring the sausages! We are 40 min from the nearest shop, so it was baked beans and mash! How stupid. I must be getting old!

On Tuesday we had lunch at our regular watering hole. Very nice as usual. The waitress just comes up to us and askes: The usual?. Anyway, today there was an ambulance crew having lunch too. They didn't look like Spanish ambulance men, and they turned out to be Dutch. I got chatting of course and they were taking a patient from Malaga to Munich (in Germany). They work for this private ambulance company that have ambulances permanently stationed in Spain to drive people home that cannot fly for some reason.

Then on Wednesday we had a 'red letter day' as they say. Our car was ready and we went to pick it up. Yes, we have bought a new car. We had an insurance mature and we decided to spend the money on a car.

It is a Fiat 500x. The x meaning that it is an SUV and as such a bit higher than other cars. The colour is called 'cappuccino' and is indeed a coffee colour. (well, very milky coffee). I suppose this was the biggest smile of the week!
I have always driven an automatic, but in Spain, they don't like automatics and they are very expensive. It also means that it will be more difficult to sell your car should you want to upgrade it, and heaven forbid that anything should go wrong with the transmission! There are very few places that are capable of repairing automatic transmissions. 

So yours truly is having to learn how to use a gear stick! My husband has taken me out Thursday (yesterday afternoon) to have a little practice. How exciting! 

Yesterday we went shopping at Lidls as they were selling art materials. I bought spray acrylics 

and watercolour pens.

The price is certainly to smile about. (I haven't used them yet).

Then yesterday afternoon, I took our Danish neighbours to see the horses at a friend's house in the next town. The Danes have horses themselves and my friend has 24 horses, so I organised a visit.

 The white horse is called Caramello and the black horse is Whiskey.

Here is our Danish friend with Caramello. She is very confident handling horses. I love watching her. It made me smile.

I nearly forgot my postcard. It's from Germany:

It reads something like: Nothing makes you happier than finding people you can annoy for the rest of your life. I'm sure Valerie or Susi will correct me if I'm wrong.
It was sent to me by Yvonne in Berlin. She writes about her hobbies and that she is learning German sign language.
These are the stamps:

Crocuses and a tulip. The bird painting is by Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1745).

That was my week in a nutshell. I will link up with Annie at A Stitch in Time and Virginia at Rocking your World Friday. Join us if you can. The more the merrier.

Have a good week, and keep smiling!
Hugs
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 3 April 2017 - T for T-bone, T-cup and knitting

Hello lovely people,

Here we are again on Tuesday. I've been keeping the photos of my posh birthday lunch behind so I could share them today with you at the T-party. Elizabeth and Bluebeard host this T for Tuesday get-together at Altered Book Lover.

We went to a hotel that we had been once before for a drink and decided we would like to have a meal there:

This is obviously the photo from the brochure, but I thought I'd show you what it looked like.

This is the dining room without any diners:

We had a table by those screens (top left).

We didn't have a first course but with the wine they always give you a little something to nibble (a tapa). This was aioli (garlic sauce) with toast.

This is what hubby had as a main course. For those of you in the states this might not be impressive, but for us in Europe this is a huge steak! 

Mine was a whole squid:

I must say it was lovely.

Then there was a chocolate dessert:

It was actually coffee flavoured with chocolate drizzled over the top. Really yummy!

The waiter was very nice and attentive, so all in all a very positive experience.

I hope we can go again some time.

Now, lets not forget my postcard. I am showing you a postcard that I sent myself some time ago. It is a black and white vintage type of picture:

When we were away in our campervan last week, the lamp post on the site had some thing on it:

I think it's called 'yarn bombing'. I have seen pictures but had never seen it myself. I love it!

In effect it's knitted grafitti. These are a few images I found on Pinterest:

Isn't that fun!

That's it from me today. This evening we might be able to pick up our new car (How exciting! I've never had a new car!). I'll let you know next week.

Happy T-Day y'all,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 31 March 2017 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely people,

I'm sorry I missed last week. We were away and the site we were on didn't have wifi (I did have my laptop with me...)

It was my birthday and we decided to get away for a few days in our campervan.

We were in a small village called Canjáyar in the Almerian Alpujarras. The village had walking routes with arrowed tiles on the ground:

We enjoyed the tranquility and the mild weather.

A little drinking fountain in the street.

Just a beautiful tree.

My postcard today comes from the Ukraine:

It is sent to me by Oksana, who lives in Kiev because there is a very good art school there for her daughter. The card is about Chernihiv and gives fun facts about that city. She thought I would like to know that there is an underground cave church in Chernihiv.

The stamps are gorgeous:

The stamp on the right features the succulent Graptopetalum Bellum, or Chihuahua plant. The one on the left is a Hippophae rhamnoides, also known as common sea buckthorn, a desiduous shrub.

Now for some smiles:

Please join me at Annie's A Stitch In Time with something to smile about. 

Later today we will be going to a wedding, a very low key affair at the local bar. So more photos next week. Also we are in the process of buying a new car, which we should be able to collect on Tuesday, so more to smile about. (It's the first time in my life that I/we will own a new car!)

Have a great week everyone.
Wishing you lots of smiles,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 28 March - T for European history, campervan and Riesling

Hello lovely people, How are you all? Thank you for visiting me today. 

We've been away for a few days and I have some photos to show you as well as my usual postcard from some faraway country.

I received several cards this week. Which one shall I share with you?

This card comes from Russia, from someone called Zoya who lives in St Petersburg. The image is a caricature of European politics in 1899. I wish I could remember my European history. The image is supposed to be funny. She used some really beautiful stamps which unfortunately, I forgot to scan...

So, last week my husband asked what i wanted to do for my birthday. I suggested we go away, so we did. We went to an area we hadn't been to before, and found a campervan parking 

in a village called Canjayar, in the Almerian Alpujarras.

Here is the village in the distance. It was very pretty and it had all sorts of info on the village history displayed on tiles on the walls of the streets:

There was a public washing facility:

Can you imagine the natter and the gossip!

I'm so thankful for washing machines after seeing this!

My lovely hubby spoils me and on the first day he cooked a fantastic "Full English Breakfast" for lunch. (I can't face this first thing in the morning).

There's bacon and eggs, baked beans and whole tomatoes. Of course with toasted bread.

We do this only when we are on holiday and it is a real treat! In this case we had a bottle of dry Riesling set aside for the occasion.

I suppose this qualifies me for the T-Party hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard. Please join us if you can with a post that has something drink related in it. (doesn't have to be tea or coffee)

I'm going to leave it at that and next week I will post more photos.

Happy T-Day all,

Hugs,

Lisca