La Fête du Muguet

Muguet, or lily of the valley, is traditionally given in France to wish people good luck and happiness with the arrival of spring.

May Day has been known as La Fête du Muguet since the 16th century when King Charles IX of France declared that anyone could sell flowers - for that day only - without a licence.

That said, the card was sent to me from Finland and on the back are the names of the plant in various other languages:

Convallaria majalis (Latin)
Kielo (Finnish)
Liljekonvalje (Swedish)
Maiglöckchen (German)

This is for Beth, who hosts Postcard Friendship Friday at The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

L is for Reading

To be more accurate, L is for "lukea" which, in Finnish, means to read.

It is an illustration by Martta Wendelin (1893-1986), an artist from Finland who created postcards, magazine covers, and illustrated fairy tales. Her themes tended to be nostalgic and charming, a little romantic.

Angels

"I send an angel to you while you sleep, it's watching over you".  A Christmas card from Finland.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday hosted on Beth Niquette's blog, The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

Autumn

The beautiful colours of autumn on the card please me so much that I have in fact posted it before (two years ago) but Sunday Stamps gives me the opportunity this time to show the stamp.  I'm showing the se-tenant strip because I think it's both attractive and clever.  All four seasons are shown, trees reflecting on water.  Not only that, the names SUOMI and FINLAND are shown in reflection on the two stamps and so too the denominations.

Other seasonal stamps I've found have been mainly mushrooms.

From Poland, the Mushrooms in Polish forests series, issued in August 2012

From Taiwan, the Wild Mushrooms series, issued in March 2010

One of  a set of 4 values showing Edible mushrooms, issued in September 2013

That made my mouth water so I had mushrooms for lunch, but they weren't wild.

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

Wetlands and amphibians

I had to turn to amphibians because I've shown snakes from Taiwan, and with the Petit Prince, dinosaurs from the Jurassic Coast, all sorts on the Origin of Species.  And could find no more reptiles.

I was quite pleased that the amphibian stamps arrived on cards from places I think of as, well, damp.  Finland is often called the Land of 1000 Lakes; Ireland has rivers and lakes galore, and in my mind Denmark comes somewhere between them.

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

Summer greetings

The beautiful outdoors in Finland.  The postcards from Finland so often have a wonderful seasonal feel about them.

Moose

Moose from Finland, from Ranua in Lapland to be precise.  I had to have a think about the plural of "moose" and it turns out to be "moose" and not mooses or anything to rhyme with geese.  It reminded me of the old joke about a zoo-keeper who wanted to order some animals for his zoo.  After tearing up several letters, he wrote, ""Dear Sir, Please send me a mongoose. And while you're about it, send me another one."

So here you have a moose, and another one.

Hämeenlinna

An illustration of the city of Hämeenlinna in Finland by Marja Liisa Pitkäranta, 2002.  Marja Liisa Pitkäranta (1941-2003) was a very prolific Finnish artist, known best for considerable production of postcards.  The copyright to all her postcards belongs to the Marja-Liisa Pitkäranta Foundation which provides grants to young people in art education.

Hämeenlinna

Illustrations of various places in Hämeenlinna by the artist Marjaliisa Pitkäranta from Finland.

The Year of the Horse

Today has been a strange day.  For a week, for seven whole days, I haven't received a single postcard apart from a couple I had bought myself, but today produced ten all at once.

Four of these came from Finland, two from Germany and the others mixed.  Three were art cards, three were maps and the two above were horses.  As I don't mention horses in my profile on Postcrossing, I wonder if they are in response to the Year of the Horse.  The top one came from Finland and the bottom one showing Welsh ponies in England came from Germany.

The Royal Mail issued some horse themed stamps along with the stamp cards last month though I think that was coincidental and not for the Year of the Horse.

The Åland Islands

The Åland Islands are a region of Finland but autonomous.  They lie closer to Sweden (38 kilometres or 24 miles) than to Finland and the official language is Swedish.  Interestingly, I live even closer than that to France.  Should I be speaking French?  It was tried in 1066.

In 1984 The Åland Islands issued their first stamps and here they are on this postcard which arrived over New Year from Finland.

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

Hyvää joulua!

My first Christmas card of the season turned out to be a stamp card from Finland showing the 1987 issue while on the reverse were the latest irregular shaped ones.  They are of a very traditional style apart from being cut to shape.

Also from Finland came a shaped Moomin stamp accompanied by a shaped Moomin air mail sticker

Then three larger-than-normal issues, one goes without saying - the Postcrossing issue, and the other two are paintings by the Finnish artist Eero Järnefelt: Burning the Brushwood and Forest Landscape.

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

Postal services

Marjaliisa Pitkäranta (1941-2003) was a prolific Finnish artist and illustrator and her works include about 2000 postcards.  The one above of a Finnish post office, had this lovely stmap on it.

Another I found on a different card would have been appropriate too:

And while I was on a roll, I also found one from the Netherlands and another from the Czech Republic:

The text on the Czech card translates (according to Google) as, "Get your own stamps".

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

The old bookshop

A view of the interior of the old bookshop in Kangasala, Finland.  And I notice they sell postcards too!

Sauna in Finland

I had to go back quite a long way to find stamps from Finland.  Once upon a time I could depend on receiving cards from Finland almost every week but now they are something of a rarity.  But I am delighted to be able to show this themed card and stamp from 2009.

According to the sender, the card and stamp rove that Finnish people are maniacs as far as saunas are concerned.  There is a sauna in every home and they are used at least once a week.  As she was writing her own sauna was heating, ready to welcome her family.

A post about stamps from Finland wouldn't be complete without some Moomin stamps.  I have more than I realised.

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

Still winter

While I have started looking around for signs of spring, people in other countries are still in the firm grip of winter.  Finland will be one of them.  This picture makes it look so very beautiful.

Not Rudolph

I hadn't realised that the post office in Finland issues postcards of their stamps, rather like the UK PHQ cards.  If it's something regular, I feel a new collecting theme coming on.

Of course, given the lack of a red nose, it can't be Rudolph.  I think it may be Dasher during a quiet moment.

I do have a number of other Christmas stamps, of course:

Also from Finland

And from Poland:

And Russia:

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

And we shall have snow

The north wind doth blow and we shall have snow
And what will the robin do then, poor thing?

He'll sit in a barn and keep himself warm
And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

Or he could make snowballs.  We've haven't had any real amount of snow here, but it's been trying hard so I thought I'd show some of the lovely Christmas postcards I've received this year, starting with this from Finland where they know all about keeping warm.