A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 19 January 2021 - T for film stars, cafe's and a layered cake

 

Hello lovely ladies, how are you all? We are plodding on in the relatively safe little village in rural Spain. Supermarket supplies are in a mess because of the extreme weather in other parts of Spain and the mail is down to a trickle compared to my regular flow of postcards. But I did receive a few last week and this is one of them:

I recognized her immediately as being Romy Schneider, a German actress, famous in the 60s. She was born in Austria to German/French parents. Romy is short for Rose Marie and Schneider was her mother's surname. She became well known for her role as empress Elizabeth in the Sissi films. The love of her life was Alain Delon, who she never actually married. He broke off their relationship after 5 years together. She suffered quite a few tragedies. She married more than once and with her husband Harry Meyden she had a son. Harry committed suicide after they divorced and two years later, her 14 year old son David was killed one Sunday when he climbed to the top of a wrought-iron gate and slipped, fell and was impaled on the spikes of a fence below. Months later Romy herself was found dead in her apartment. She and her son David were buried together.

The stamps are beautiful. The one on the right says: Kohlenstofffasern, which means carbon fibres. It comes from a series called Micro worlds. The photos are made by prof Manfred Kage with a very strong microscope (electron microscope). The image above has an amplification of 400.

Here are some more examples:

The human hair, with an amplification of 250.

Then there is 'Liquid crystal display', which is 40 times amplified.

I find all that fascinating. I wish I could look through an electron microscope. I don't think they had those when I went to uni.

Enough of that. What have I been up to? The current situation dictates that we stay home as much as possible.

This is our home:

The green gate towards the left is the entrance to the old cave house which hubby is restoring. You can't see much of the cave house, but you can see the garage on top of it (with a green window) plus a sizeable terrace. The whole left part of the photo is old. The four storey building on the right is the house we live in. The top floor is the bed room, under there (with the arched window) is our living room/kitchen, where I am now and where you saw my hubby sit the other day.

Under there (again with an arched window) is my craft room with a large terrace, and down stairs there is an apartment where we live in the summer. There is a car port downstairs, and there is one upstairs (not visible). There is a street entrance upstairs, level with the yellowish building in the photo. This photo was taken on Sunday. As you can see the weather is lovely and I make sure I get some fresh air every day.

On Sunday I walked with my hubby to our plot. With the excuse that we had to empty our kitchen scraps onto the compost heap.

Our house is exactly behind my head (In the distance).

Me and my shadow...

Guess what I saw? Lots of little flowers! Aren't they cute?

This is an 'asequia', an irrigation canal. It's about a foot wide and the whole system of irrigation canals dates from the Moors (Early Middle Ages).

This morning (Monday), hubby had to go to the doctor's to have his bloods done. He was nil by mouth for that, so as soon as we were done, we stopped at a local bar to have breakfast:

Of course we also had freshly squeezed orange juice. (as well as coffee). This is also my ticket to the T-Party. Elizabeth and Bleubeard host this online get-together where all you need is a beverage to join in the fun.

We are no longer allowed to stand at the bar (as most people do when they pop in for a coffee or a drink), so they put bar small tables by the bar, and people sit at the little tables. Crafty!

There was a guy sat at the particular table and I had to wait until he had gone so that I could take the photo.

The highlight this week was Friday, when we were invited to have supper with our Mexican friends. She had prepared a lovely table for us:

I brought a bottle of liquor (another beverage for the T-Party). My friend prepared (among other things) this 'roscon' (circular bread) filled with ham and cheese. 

I had made a layered cake

Layers of sponge with pastry cream in between the layers.

And chocolate flakes on top. Very yummy.

Last but not least, I want to show you a sunset from the other evening. Valerie does sunrises but I only see the sunset.

I'll leave you with something I found on the internet:

That is it from me my lovelies. 

Happy T-Day to all,

Stay safe and stay healthy.

Hugs,

Lisca

Edit: Kathy asked if the flowers were dandelions. I think not. Here is another photo, but a bit closer:

A Postcard A Day - Friday 16 January 2021 - Friday Smiles

 

Hello lovely ladies, 

It's Friday Smiles again and time to look back at the smiles of our week, the silver lining and all that was positive. 

My first smile is my postcard. I received it from Germany earlier this week, when I received 6 other cards, all from Germany. (There must have been a mail train from Germany or a flight, as they all arrived together.)

This is something we all wish we could do: bathe in the sea in the sun. These ladies in their daring bathing costumes certainly seem to be enjoying it. 

The info on the back gives us a date: 1925, and the place: Muritz on the Ostsee.

This is what it looks like now:

The stamps are beautiful. The large one on the right I have featured before. 

The Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm, (German: Dessau-Wörlitzer Gartenreich) is a World Heritage Site in Germany, that lies between city of Dessau and the town of Wörlitz in Central Germany. It was designated world heritage in 2000. It is one of the first and largest English parks in Germany and continental Europe. It was created in the late 18th century under the regency of Duke Leopold III of Anhalt-Dessau (1740-1817), returning from a Grand Tour to Italy, the Netherlands, England, France and Switzerland he had undertaken together with his friend architect Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff. Strongly influenced by the ideals of The Enlightenment, they aimed to move on from the formal garden concept of the Baroque era in favour of a naturalistic landscape as they had seen at Stourhead Gardens and Ermenonville. Today the cultural landscape of Dessau-Wörlitz encompasses an area of 142 km² (55 sq mi) within the Middle Elbe Biosphere Reserve in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.

Let me show you the collages of my week. I never did a collage on Friday, but Saturday was a lovely day. I smiled because of the sun, and because we had pancakes for breakfast, a real treat. Also I started a new book. Tess Gerritsen (A Dutch name, but she is American of Chinese descent) The Sinner. It is a medical thriller. In real life the author is a surgeon, so all the medical stuff rings very true. I couldn't put it down!

I read my book in little over 24 hours and have started The Surgeon by the same author. Exciting stuff!

When we went shopping on Monday, there were a lot of empty shelves and i was getting worried, until I realized that there had been heavy snowfall in Madrid and central Spain over the weekend. The news mentioned blocked roads and lorries stuck in the snow. So I suppose that is the reason for the lack of supply.

On Tuesday we went out for lunch at our favorite restaurant, and then spent the night at our weekend home nearby.

My sister, who also lives in Spain, is a golfer. When they have bad weather, she doesn't know what to do with herself. They did a jigsaw and loved it, so then I found another puzzle that I had double and I sent it to her.

Yesterday I made Dutch pea soup in my Instant Pot. I have my own recipe. I just put all the ingredients together in the Instant Pot and I guestimated 20 minutes of pressure, and it turned out perfect! (Recipe further down)

That was my week dear ladies. How about yours? 

I'm going to join Annie at A Stitch In Time and Virginia at Rocking Your Week Friday. 

Of course as per usual, there will be some funnies at the end.

Well my dears, stay safe and take care,

Keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca

The following one is a Chrismassy one that got forgotten: (Please sing out loud)

The translation of the below Spanish text is: Please check that it is not someone from your group.

This is not really a funnie. I just like these benches:

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 12 January 2021 - T for embossed angels and crowing roosters

 Hello lovely ladies,

Happy New Year to all! 

(Sorry if I repeat myself for those who also read my Friday blog) Hubby and I have been to the Netherlands to visit my 96 yr old mother. It was against all recommendations and common sense, but I wanted to see her, and I am glad I went. We had a lovely time. Of course we couldn't go anywhere or see anyone, but I cooked lovely meals for/with her and we had quality time. We spent zoom time with other family members and the last few days we spent filling in forms online and getting a Covid test. The test is more expensive than the flight and we had to travel into Rotterdam city to have it done. Most European countries require a negative test to enter into the country and Spain is no exception. Of course we were negative, but it is still a strange experience to fly. The airports are empty, very eerie. Schiphol (Amsterdam airport) which is a large intercontinental airport, was empty. Rotterdam airport was closed all together. We had to travel to Amsterdam on an intercity train for more than an hour, which worried me, but the train was half empty (The train goes straight into the airport and is usually very full). 

Nobody questioned my motives for traveling, nobody checked our passports, they were only interested in the QR code that we obtained online after filling in all the documents and declarations. We both went: "Phew!" and went to collect our car at the car park. When I went to pay, the machine malfunctioned and I had to ring for the attendant to retrieve my card from the machine. Another "Phew!" 

We had vague ideas of perhaps staying in a hotel for the night and driving home the next day, as hubby has been ill with a bowel condition since before we left. I didn't want him to tire too much, it's a long drive. But there was snow forecast that night, so we decided to go straight home. We did it in four hours.

The first thing I did was check the mail. And what a lovely surprise:

It was mail from Linda Kunsman. She has sent me some beautiful vintage Christmas cards. This one is embossed. Even the sentiment is embossed. Isn't it beautiful? Thank you so much Linda. 

The card was posted in 1907:

I have just spent half an hour reading about the person on the stamp: Benjamin Franklin. He is probably well known in American circles, but I had not heard of him and assumed he had been a president. He was not. He was one of the founding fathers of the United States. Wikipedia says this:

Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705] – April 17, 1790) was a British American polymath and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a leading writer, printer, political philosopher, politician, Freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, humorist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions.^[1] He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department,^[2] and the University of Pennsylvania.

But I encourage you to read about him yourself, such an interesting man!

The other card is a funny one (although I don't see the joke) or is it perhaps a card with a feminist message?

This one has a 1949 cancelling stamp and was directed to someone in Bethlehem, PA (where Linda lives). 

I went to Google to see if the address still exists, and it does, there is a pharmacy where Mr Charles used to live.

Linda also sent me a print of some lovely art work she did as a Christmas card.

Absolutely beautiful Linda. Thank you so much! I will treasure these things.

The morning after we got home, we went to the health center and asked for an appointment with our doctor. He could see us an hour later, so we didn't bother walking all the way home, but went to have breakfast in the nearest bar:

Breakfast is toasted bread with tomatoes and olive oil (and salt). You can see the sugar bag on my plate. In our area they have sayings and quotes printed on them. It has helped me no end when I was learning Spanish. And I help hubby translate while we drink coffee.

The translation of this one is: 

If you want to go fast, walk alone.

If you want to travel far, go with company.

(African proverb)

Hubby has his with cheese on top.

These photos are also my ticket to the T-Party hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard. 

One last photo before I go. This was this afternoon:

It's still very cold, but as you can see, we are just short of the snow line, which is fine by me. I'm not really a lover of snow.

That is it from me. 

Happy T-Day to all,

Stay safe,

Lisca