Christmas postcards and stamps

I bought several sets of these Royal Mail PHQ Christmas postcards a few years ago and now I'm down to one remaining set.  I'll use them up over the nest few weeks but I'll be sorry to see them go.  They show the images for the 1983 Christmas stamps:

12½p Christmas Post (pillar-box),
16p The Three Kings (chimneys )
20½ World at Peace (a dove and a blackbird)
28p Light of Christmas (street lamp)
31p Christmas Dove (topiary)

As I was looking up what the images represented, I discovered that someone is selling them on Zazzle. Surely that's a copyright issue?

That aside, I found plenty of other bird stamps:

Great Egret from Belarus

Long-eared owl on Belgian stamp

From the Netherlands 

Siberian Crane on stamp from Russia

and a cute little owl from Switzerland.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

The couple on the bench

Carl Spitzweg: Das Paar auf dem Bank (um1860) The Couple on the Bench

This picture reminds me of the Mazda light advertisement, And in Life's Evening Time, though in fact it's really quite different. Nevertheless it shows us a contented (presumably) and not-so-young couple taking a break on their stroll through the woods.

Carl Spitzweg was a German artist of the 19th century, often making his pictures a humourous look at life. Another well known work of his is The Bookworm.

A post for Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Beth Niquette on her blog, The Best Hearts are Crunchy. Click on the button to visit and join in.

Sant Climent

The churches of the Vall de Boí in Spain are listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites because of their Romanesque architecture.  There are nine of them altogether and the church of Sant Climent de Taüll above is one of them, probably the best preserved.  It dates from the early 12th century.

The valley is a narrow one, high up in the Pyrenees and has a ski resort and national park as well as the Romanesque churches.

Crete, doors and windows

Doors and windows are a popular collecting theme as far as postcards are concerned, and here we have a little of both.

Someone in Germany went on holiday to Greece and visited Crete, the largest of the Greek islands. She brought the card home and sent it to me just last week: a pleasant reminder of summer holidays and warm weather.

Tarn et Garonne

As today is the 150th birthday of Toulouse-Lautrec, I attempted to find a map of the area around Albi in the Tarn département (south west France) where he was born.  I failed but here instead is a map of Tarn et Garonne the next département along to the west.  Albi is almost directly to the east of Montauban.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec was an artist, now probably best known for his posters such as the one above advertising the Moulin Rouge.

Yngve Ekström' furniture

I've just returned from having been away from home for three weeks so I wasn't expecting to be able join in this week's Sunday Stamps.  During most of that time I've had my Postcrossing account inactive but I changed it back to active last Wednesday evening - and the postcards have already flooded in!

Are you sitting comfortably?  Then I'll begin...

One of those cards, by happy chance, comes from Sweden and the stamp is one from a set that features Swedish furniture design.  This particular stamp shows the Lamino chair and stool by Yngve Ekström, designed in 1956.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

Young roe deer

I travel home tomorrow, so I hope to post more regularly and with a little more to say for myself. The postcsrd showing the young deer came from Belgium.

Kinderdijk

One of the very well known and easily recognisable UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the Netherlands.  I was lucky enough to travel along the canal a long time ago.  At that time I didn't realise its significance but I do remember remarking on the number of windmills along its length.

Beatrix Potter

When I was little, my mother used to read me Beatrix Potter's books and then later (though it seemed only a flash) I used to read them to my sons when they were small.  I am waiting until my grandchildren are the right age for me to start reading them again.

This particular illustration is from The Tale of Peter Rabbit and it shows how Mr McGregor, the grumpy gardener, used Peter's jacket and shoes to make a scarecrow to frighten off the blackbirds.

Utamaro

This card arrived in my collection entirely by accident - I found it inside a second-hand book I bought recently.  It was originally sent from Japan by a dutiful son to his mother.

The picture is one of Kitagawa Utamaro's woodblock prints.  He was a Japanese artist (1753-1806) and one of the most famous artists of the ukiyo-e tradition of prints.

I haven't been able to identify this one in spite of having trawled through 800+ images on ukiyo-e.org
There were 3000+ of them so I know I didn't really get very far.

Birds of a feather flock together

Starlings flocking at sunset in Aberystwyth, Wales.  I presume that is the Royal Pier that we can see at the bottom left.  As with many piers, it is now much shorter than its original length of 242 metres or 794 feet.

Menorca

Menorca is one of the group of islands called the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea.  The others of this group are Majorca, Ibiza, Formentera and Cabrera, plus a number of much smaller islands.  They form an autonomous province of Spain but each of the four larger islands has its own administrative council.

Menorca itself is the third largest of the islands and is largely unspoilt and has been designated a UNESCO biosphere reserve,.  Something interesting that I have only recently found out: it was a British possession three times during the 18th century and some British influence can still be seen today in the architecture and language, words such as "grevi" meaning gravy!

A map for Monday.

New Yorker

It really isn't easy to use the Blogger app. There is no html and no option to add any links, no way that I have yet found to add labels.  However I managed to upload a number of postcard scans so I'll try to plough onwards.

The card shown is one of a boxed set of New Yorker covers and the first I've received.  It fits very well in my books/libraries/reading collection. 

I've bought a couple of boxed sets myself and they are extremely good value even though I find I am left with a few cards that don't seem suitable for anyone.

Float like a butterfly

Very soon I'll be in the air, hopefully on a more direct route than any taken by a butterfly, on my way to visit my son and his family.  I'll be away from home for three weeks in all.

The butterflies were sent to me from Israel.  I don't know if they are local to that area or not.  They aren't any I recognise.

Of course, I had intended to set up scheduled posts but time has slipped by.  I  will try to post something from time to time but I'm afraid, knowing me, it is likely to be sporadic.