A Postcard A day - Tuesday 15 January 2019 - T for floorball, floor mess, and photos

Hello lovely people,

It's Tuesday again! The weeks fly by, don't they.

Here are some postcards I received last week. The first one comes from Latvia. It was sent by Una, a 51 year old designer from Riga, the capital.

 It is a black and white photo of a pretty girl. The stamp is interesting too.It features the 2016 Men's World Floorball Championships were the 11th World Championships in men's floorball. The tournament took place in Latvia in December 2016. 

 Ever heard of floorball? Me neither:   'Floorball is a type of floor hockey with five players and a goalkeeper in each team. Men and women play indoors with 96–115.5 cm-long sticks and a 22–23 cm-circumference plastic ball with holes. Matches are played in three twenty-minute periods.' 
I got thi off the internet, but the ball on the photo doe n't look like cm at all!

The second card is a vintage travel poster from the US. There is some info on the back of the card:
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park was established in 1980, the 48th park among America's 59 National Parks. Located in southeastern Alaska, it looms over the Canadian-Yukon border. Wrangell-St. Elias is the largest National Park with 13 million acres, the size of Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks and Switzerland combined! Mount St. Elias, at 18,008 feet, is the second highest peak in the U.S. Mt. Wrangell, at14,163 feet, is one of the largest active volcanoes in North America.

 The card was sent to me by Seema, who lives in Minnesota (Land of 10,00 lakes). As you can see the stamps are lovely. One of them features a vintage poster and the other is of course Katherine Hepburn, a very beautiful actress whom I remember well.

Yesterday I went to the gym as usual and this is what we found:

The treadmills were all moved away and there was an unholy mess on the floor! Here is our teacher looking a bit like: what are we going to do...

 It turns out that the floor needed cleaning. The cleaners are having a cleaning machine for the day and had asked some strong men to move the machines on Friday night as they were going to clean on Monday morning. (But we had arrived before them). The mess on the floor is what was underneath the machines. Just as well it is getting cleaned.

I am joining the T-Party organised by Elisabeth and Bluebeard. For that I need to have a beverage in my blog. Well I have two (accidentally).
Saturday evening was the inauguration of a photographic exhibition in our village. It shows the best photos of 2018 from the several photoclubs in the province of Granada (I think there are nine). The lady with the hat (called Encarna) had made the cakes and brought home made liquors and there were soft drinks too. I hadn't realised the drinks were in the photo so now I have two beverages in this blog.

 My 'official,' drinks reference is this box of tea which we bought in Holland when we were there recently. We have tasted it already and it is very nice. It has oolong tea in it (a bit smoky) and white mint, lemon myrtle leaves, marigold leaves, oil of orange, oil of green mint and yuzu flavouring.

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

A Postcard A Day - Friday 10 January 2019 - Friday Smiles (And very rude funnies)

Hello lovely Friday friends,

Here I am again, at my computer, with a few postcards to show you and to tell you how my week has gone.

Of course I will be linking up with Annie at A Stitch in Time and with Virginia at Rocking your Week Friday.
Usually I would start by showing you some postcards, but today I'm going to show you two Christmas cards I received. 

As we left the country so early, I didn't see most of my christmas cards until after we got home last week. 
Here is the one Annie sent me. Thank you so much Annie! It is beautiful. The image in the middle is fabric and the cross stitches are hand embroidered. The theme of course is 'bears' (What else!)

 The next card is  from Shaz and Doug. The baubles are embossed (I think) in a glittery golden which is not so visible on the scanned image. But believe me, it is absolutely gorgeous. Thanks Shaz!

These cards will be sitting on my workdesk for a good while, after which they go in a box where I keep all my hand-made cards. I look through them periodically when I need some inspiration.

The week has pàst very quickly. We arrived back in Spain very late on Friday night and Saturday we slept late, unpacked and generally relaxed.
Then in the evening we went out for dinner with some of our Danish friends who own the house next door. I thought that was a good idea as we had little food in the house and no enthusiasm to cook.

On Sunday I baked my own bread, so when we came home from church, there was a lovely loaf plus the house smelling of freshly baked bread. (One of the best smells ever)

Sunday was Epiphany, or as they call it here Los Reyes. A very popular festival that remembers the visit of the three kings to the baby Jesus. The children receive their presents  (in stead of Christmas) on this day. 

It is a bit of folklore. The Bible does mention Magi visiting the Christchild.  The term magi originally referred to a caste of Persian priests, astrologers who looked to the stars as guides. Nowhere in the Bible do we find how many. The Eastern Orthodox church believes there were 12, and in western folklore they became three kings, probably because they gave three gifts.

There are usually parades therough the town and the 'kings' and their entourage throw sweets into the crowds. 

Because Sunday was Epiphany, Monday was a Bank Holiday. Another day that the shops were closed.

We raided the freezer where I always keep home made meals as I habitually cook double portions.

Monday night saw us driving to our weekend home where we relaxed by the fire and watched this DVD which was one of our Christmas presents.

It follows Todd White (amongst others) in Rome. Todd is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player, who is now a street preacher:

He is a bit mad cap but we like him.

On Tuesday we had a meal out again so I was glad when the gym opened again on Wednesday.

One of the items in my suitcase from Holland were these dried peas. 

I went to the butcher to get some meat with lots of bone

And I made a traditional Dutch 'erwtensoep' (thick pea soup) on Wednesday.

Yesterday I spent the day in my craft room. I had a list of things I wanted to do, but I didn't do much creating. I went through my supplies, tidied, organized and sorted some photos. Then eventually I did do two scrapbook pages. 

I played with my Gelatos (Tropical) which have the colours in this photo (below), but I don't seem to be able to use them any other way than as crayons. They don't turn into watercolours, which I was hoping. In the end I used some of my millions of scrapbook papers, and now my photo (of mum and me) can go in the album.

The second page I made is a photo of my dad when he was young. I played with my die cuts to make cogs to match the paper. The clock wheels on the page are shiny, and the little envelope is meant to house some journaling. I will have to phone mum to ask her some details. I should have phoned her last night but I was busy preparing my blog and in the end I forgot.

That is it from me today. As usual, I will add some funnies. They come with a health warning this time. A disclaimer, warning, or whatever you want to call it. 

They are particularly UN-politically correct and rude. If you are easily offended, don't read on. If you are a vegan, sorry, I have nothing against vegans. I just thought it was funny.

Have a lovely weekend and,

Keep smiling,

Hugs

Lisca

Translation: Last selfie before they put us back in the box!

A Postcard A day - Tuesday 8 January 2019 - T for Tuesday traveling, board games, pancakes and presents

Good Morning, let your day begin with a smile.

Hi folks! 
Welcome to the T-Party hosted by Elisabeth and Bluebeard. And here I am with my blog about my life in Spain, postcards, good food and an occasional scrapbook page (note to self: start doing scrapbooking again).
And because this is T for Tuesday, I will have a beverage in the blog. You will find it at the end.

But first my postcards: The first one is a card specially made for a Postcrossing meeting in Finland. All over the world Postcrossers organize meetings in their country and this one was in Finland. There are more than 17000 Postcrossers in Finland (twice as much as in Spain) but only a small number will be able to travel to the meeting.

The stamps were lovely too:

The second postcard comes from Russia and has a food theme. I always like to know what people cook and eat in other countries. This one did not have any information on it but it looks like pancakes with caviar, although on the one occasion that I have eaten caviar, it was black...

I

If you have followed my blog, you will know that we have spent Christmas and New Year in Holland. We had a very quiet and relaxing holiday.

I managed to get a travel version of the board game Sequence. So on New Year's eve we taught my cousin how to play and spent part of the evening having fun with it.

After spending two weeks in the Netherlands with my mother, hubby and I have now returned to Spain. Oh it is so good to see the sun again.  Holland is lovely, but (like England) the skies are always grey. 

As we were queueing to board the aircraft, we saw these cute chairs:

After I took the picture, a couple with a baby placed their child on the chair and took pictures too. Nobody sat in them while we were there.

There were several parcels to collect when we got home and we had fun opening these lovely gifts from our children.

Some of our Danish friends were still in our village (they live next door to us but can only come for the holidays as they are younger than we are and have jobs to go to.). So Saturday night we had a meal together. 

I'm drinking wine as usual and the lady taking the picture (pink drink) is drinking Tinto de Verano which is red wine and lemonade (translated it means summer red wine).

Today we are eating at a restaurant again and then tonight we are finally going to do some food shopping. We came home Saturday, went out in the evening and forgot to do shopping. Sunday everything is closed here. When I wanted to go shopping on Monday, it turns out the shops are closed again as Epiphany (THree Kings) was on Sunday, so they have their day off on Monday. We have been raiding the freezer and baking bread etc. 

Now I am ready for some fresh fruit and veg.

That is it from me today.
Wishing you all a happy T-Day,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 4 Jan 2019 - Friday Smiles

Hello Friday friends!

Happy 2019. Away with the old year and all its problems, difficulties and sad times. Lets look forward to a new year full of promise and expectations.

I hope Annie will be back to show off her lovely grandies, and I look forward to reading about Virginia's visits to stately homes and sculpture parks.

Let me show you some postcards that I received before we left for the Netherlands. This one is from Austria.

 I like doors and windows, so I have a lovely window and window box. Perfect.

The next one I like even more. It looks quite iconic. It comes from Switzerland and features Charles Eames posing in the lounge chair 1956 for an advertisement. (From the Vitra Design Museum in Switzerland.)

Who is Charles Eames you might ask?

Charles and Ray Eames were two of the most influential designers of the 20th Century.

Charles and Ray Eames are most famous for their iconic chairs, which transformed our idea of modern furniture, but this was merely one facet of their work. They were graphic and textile designers, architects and film-makers. If they’d confined their efforts to just one of these genres, we’d still be talking about them today. Yet they spread their talents far and wide, becoming two of the greatest designers of the 20th Century.

In 2018, it was 40 years since Charles died, and 30 years since his beloved wife and creative partner Ray (born Bernice Kaiser) passed away. And their groundbreaking work remains as influential as ever, with a new exhibition at the Vitra Museum exploring the careers of this dynamic couple.

Here is a photo I found on the internet:

The designs of his chairs are so timeless. I just love it.

The stamps on this card are also very interesting. I have not been able to find much info about that one on the right, beautiful though it is.

I would like to share a photo of our New Year's Eve:

We played a game called Sequence. I managed to find a small travel version of this game and I taught my cousin to play it too. 

I had made a traditional 'Russian' salad. It's made with boiled potatoes and slow cooked pulled meat, with little bits of gherkin and pickled onions. Lashes of mayonnaise etc. You get the idea. It's delish. It looks pink because we add beetroot. With another beetroot I cut out the year

 Of course there was Champagne (courtesy of my cousin). Hubby is opening it as I don't want the cork to shoot through mum's glass cabinet!

I don't have any funnies for you, but as it's the first post of the year, a few more reflective pictures.

That's it from me. 

Enjoy your weekend and...

Keep smiling!

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 1 Jan 2019 - T for Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!! 

Gosh that year flew by! I am writing this on New Year's Eve, as I am not likely to get up tomorrow morning .

We are here with my mum and my cousin in Holland and are eating traditional Dutch pastries. This New Year's Eve speciality is called 'oliebollen' 

 It is deep fried dough ball with currants. This is what it looked like without the icing sugar.

 This one is called 'appelflap', and has apples in it.

We are sort of waiting for midnight and looking outside where people are already firing the fire works. It's quite noisy. We are having attempt at Charades but the fire works are making a lot of noise.

I have saved some of my postcards from last week. Here is one from the US. 

It was sent to me by Simone, who has a husband and a Boston terrier called Boston.
The stamp is beautiful and of interest to me as a geologist: The stamp on the left shows variscite. 

Variscite is a hydrated aluminium phosphate mineral (relatively rare). It is sometimes confused with turquoise; however, variscite is usually greener in color. The green color results from the presence of small amounts of chromium.

She also added  fun sticker with books:

The second card is from Russia and was sent to me by Nelly from Sebastopol. The card is an old map of the Crimea. Of course Sebastopol is on that peninsula.

Nelly teaches capoeira. Capoeira is a martial art that combines elements of fight, acrobatics, music, dance and rituals in a very elegant and magnetic way. Performed by two people, it is often called “Capoeira game” that is played, not a fight.

Capoeira was created nearly 500 years ago in Brazil by African slaves (mainly from Angola).  To cover their inside combats from their captors, the African slaves used their traditional music, singing and dancing.

I had never heard of it and I find it fascinating.

The stamps have beautiful flowers.

As today is T for Tuesday, hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard, so here is my beverage. I'm helping mum open one of her christmas presents and her cup of tea is on the table. In a mug commemorating Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee 1952-1977.

Wishing all of you a very happy T-Day and most of all a peaceful and healthy New Year.

Hugs

Lisca