Black minus red is blue and yellow

Today's Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Dark, colour or theme'. When I saw this theme announced last Sunday, I immediately had an atmospheric, nice dark / sunset stamp in mind. Not knowing what would happen later this week.
Thursday morning, 24 February, a horrible news shook the world. How can one man even think of attacking a country, and then let his bad saddening thoughts come true by letting the army of his country invade the neighbouring country...

Thanks to our stamp hobby on instagram I've learned to know kind and thoughtful people from both countries. While the woman in RU feels guilty and sad and supports the UA people, the UA woman is hiding in shelter due to the bombing...

Both you, dear visitor, and I know how real mail can connect real people in a positive way, and I wished that this agressive president would have been sending postcards and drink tea and make music with the neighbours instead of causing pain and loss by starting a bad, sad war.

Instead of the dark sunset stamp I originally had in mind, I chose two specific bright colours for today. The connection with the theme, dark/black: Painters know that the three primary colours together make black (or at least a dark grey).
So if we pull the red out of this black, the remaining colours form the bright colours of the flag of the country we are supporting in these hard times.
And I chose these stamps (coincidentally from other countries) to have these Blue and Yellow always keep on shining bright.

Last but not least, I dont know if KR Post did issue this yellow umbrella stamp intentionally to support the people in HK, but anyhow I think these people, whose freedom has been taken away by an other mighty country, deserve attention and support, too.

Let us not forget that many other countries have been invaded and even stolen by other countries (also in 'our' past via colonialism) and still today many more people in many countries suffer from war and agression.
Hopefully peace will gain victory all over the world very, very soon.

See more stamps on the theme, supporting Ukraine and peace, at - and in the comments to - today's Sunday Stamps post.

Sunday Stamp: Nella Larsen

It has been a long time since I posted for Sunday Stamps, and I am happy to add a stamp for today's theme: 'N'.

My late mom was named Nelly, and the woman on this stamp is named Nella, so her name is dear :-)
I found some more information about Nella Larsen on the internet, and her career is matching to this Sunday Stamps' theme also: she was both a nurse and a novellist.
I didn't know her books so far. But now that I was searching for more information, I found out that her novel 'Passing', first published in 1929, still is available (and even has been translated into my language, Nederlands / Dutch). As it is about two women from mixed families (which is a dear theme to me) I just ordered it, to read it more than ninety years after Nella has written the book.

Nella's stamp was accompanied by a stamp of an other writer, plus a matching postmark of the Harlem Renaissance movement (many thanks to FinnBadger for these stamps and postmark):

See more stamps on today's theme on and via the comments on today's Sunday Stamps.

In: from the UN and the US

It is fascinating to see how Finnbadger manages to send mail from... er, as many countries as the United Nations do count!

The stamps show three of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the successor of the eight Millenium Goals (which alas haven't been accomplished in 2015).

Inside the envelope, besides a kind message from the sender, a vintage written back of a postcard, and this wonderful mailbox collage by Craftgasm.



Thank you very much, Finnbadger!

Postcards for the weekend: Lighthouses

This time the Postcards for the Weekend theme is 'Lighthouses'.

First I have to mention that my computer crashed last week, so I cannot scan and upload new postcards, and don't have access to the postcards and stamps which I uploaded in the past years - I did because lighthouses are favourite theme, too!

So the following postcards I'm posting, thanks to my daughter's laptop, haven't been uploaded now: I picked them from the internet.
The last five I copied from this 'nog meer post' weblog, and the first one from the website of Ravindra, to whom I've sent several lighthouses.

Among them this one, 'Lange Jaap', 'tall Jaap', the lighthouse in the northern part of my province, Noord-Holland, in the city of Den Helder.
I've seen the Lang Jaap from the sea, last year, when I took the boat to the first Wadden Island, Texel.



On his turn Ravindra sent me several postcards from his country, Sri Lanka, among them this lighthouse, named Beruwela:



Ravindra even has a blog dedicated to lighthouses on postcards, and besides that, also one about lighthouses on stamps.


Of course I have to show at least one postcard which Eva has sent me. She is the one who infected me with the 'lighthouse virus' :-)
I had a beautiful one from Spain in mind to share here, but as said, alas I cannot get the analogue postcard in this digital apparatus anymore, at the moment.
This one is a beauty, too. It shows a painting by the famous painter Edward Hopper:



You can see a slightly postal addition in the right upper corner: a postmark.
The next card has received even more postmark ink in front during it's travel, but still is a beautiful one.

It has been sent by John, who has sent me more wonderful lighthouse postcards. This one, also issued as a postage stamp, is the lighthouse at Saint John's point.



Also postcrossers have brightened my day by lighthouse cards.
I'm very happy with this maximum card, showing a lighthouse full of cubes (the first cubed one I had ever seen so far). It is the lighthouse at Casuarina Point WA:



Last but not least, a postcard which made me wonder most. As this lighthouse is located in a country which doesn't have any dirct contact with sea: Switzerland! And the lighthouse is even over 2000 meters above sea level!



See more beautiful postcards and stamps about lughthouses via this link.