Some odds and ends

I am hoping to start blogging again a few of the postcards I receive.  Here are one or two random ones from earlier this year.

2967 - from Susanne in Germany

3058 - From Anastasia in Belarus

with typically beautiful Belarusian stamps

3079 - Heleen in The Netherlands sent me this wonderful Carl Spitzweg painting 'The Eternal Bridegroom' from 1855-60.

and more delightful stamps

3071 - Albert Anker's 'Little Girl Writing' from Susanne -

Hopefully I shall be doing posts themed about cats, post, and places in the near future.  In the meanwhile, books remain a perennially well-received theme.

4011 - From Danielle in the USA

Happy New Year

2989 - From Irina, a friend in St Petersburg, came this New Year card and a great frank on the back.

2993 - Susanne in Germany has just sent me this beautiful card.  I expect there will be plenty of card and letter writing going on in 2016.

2988 - There will be many different postboxes used over the next twelve months but this card from Eva wasn't posted in the box shown - it is situated in Madrid and only used for postage within that city.

2990 - I expect cats will feature on a number of the cards I receive.  Thanks to Susanne for this one.

2991 - And, of course, cats come in all shapes and sizes.  Another from Susanne.

2992 - No doubt the subject of  'Reading' will feature on a number of cards like this one, also from Susanne.

Some recent cards

1299 – Yoko in Japan (JP-488187) sent me this card of a Japanese Maiko.

1300 - The London Library after the Blitz sent to me by Dai Li in China.  A most moving picture.

1304, 1313 – Audrey Hepburn cards from Dai Li.  

Some of a few that she kindly sent me, including a packet of Audrey Hepburn cards.

1287 – Siggi in Germany also sent me a beautiful Audrey Hepburn card.

1305 & 1306 – I don’t know who the artist is of these two pictures from Dai Li but I love their simplicity.  They remind me of the Picasso picture of a reclining woman.

1315 & 1316 – From Lena (RU-2303812) came two cards and a lot of stamps.

1317 – It was snowing when Monica sent me this from Sweden.   An excuse top send me another super Lennart Helje picture.

1318 –A map maxi-card from Susanne in Germany. 

1319 – Another maxi-card from Susanne – this time it’s a postman’s bicycle, probably from the early 1900s.

Isn’t this a lovely envelope?

A little selection

Some of these are from as far back as August 2013.

757 from Alina from Dneprodzerzhins'k in the Ukraine (UA-702038).  (Try pronouncing Dneprodzerzhins'k after a drink or two!)

And the stamp has this super inkwell on it.

770 A mail carrier in Puerto Rico from Matt in the USA (US-2347235).  Where a card is received as a result of postcrossing I have included its i/d number so that anyone who wants to ‘Favourite’ it can do so.

775 – From my friend Mish in Belarus to whet your appetite.  It reminded her of one of her favourite childhood treats – bread with butter mixed with garlic and salt.  “Yummy!”

Aren’t these fantastic stamps?

776 – Kerilesen from Germany sent me this picture of a motor post vehicle from Berlin around 1900 (DE-2381999).

778 – Also from Germany came this card from Conni (DE-2377477).  Entitled ‘Read’, the photo was taken by Raffaele Celentano.

789 – Simona sent me this from Lithuania’s first ever postcrossers meet-up.  It was signed by all those who attended (LT-313498). 

792 – A Lithuanian postbox – also from Simona.

And a Happy New Year...

I have received so many cards over the Christmas and New Year period that there is no way I can put them all on this blog.  So I have just chosen a couple of my favourites.  The above one (1269) is from Susanne, my friend in Dortmund, Germany. 

This one (1273)  is from eight year old Katya, a postcrosser (UA-900492) in the Ukraine.

It had these super stamps on it -

The above stamp is of a beautiful Russian actress from the turn of the Twentieth Century.  Vera Kholodnaya was the first star of Russian silent cinema. Only five of her films still exist and the total number she acted in is unknown, with speculation ranging between fifty and one hundred.  She died young as a result of the 1918 flu pandemic.

Anastasia from Minsk in Belarus sent me this delightful card - 1223 - which says (in Estonian) 'May your Christmas wishes come true'.

This map of Switzerland - 1201 - came from Michi (CH-174908).

This was the first time I had ever seen a hologram stamp (which proved impossible to scan properly).

 Chloe from the Philippines sent me this direct swap map - 1208 -

 
 Books, of course, feature on a lot of my cards.  This one - 1195 - from Danielle in Nebraska is by Katsuhisa Toda and is entitled 'The Key'.

 Bonnie Jeanne sent me this Reading Woman card  - 1222 - which is one of my favourites.  By Edouard Gelhay it is entitled 'Elegant Women in a Library'.

 Kate, a teacher from Russia, sent me this postcrossing card (RU-2247373) from my favourites - 1205.

We have had a mild winter so far but there are floods across the whole country (100 flood warnings last night alone).  So the title of this card from Danielle - "Mail in all conditions" - seems quite appropriate even if we haven't had the snow yet.  Meanwhile Danielle and much of North America is freezing.

Many of my Christmas postcards featured Santa Claus in his various guises but on this one from Monica tomten knocks on the door on Christmas Eve while the family are gathered at the table rather than sneaking down the chimney overnight.

 The postal services have been extra busy over the last few weeks  as 1197 from Heleen in The Netherlands shows.

Heleen used one of the best postal services stamps I have seen yet -

Natalya, a Russian civil engineering student and postcrosser (RU-2236074), sent me this Happy New Year Card (1191) and I am happy to pass on those same wishes to you...

I have been so lucky.  And I haven't even shown you my New York cards from Virginia, my cards of India from Amit,  or my Chinese cards from Dai Li yet...