Postcards for the Weekend: Happiness, joy

This Postcards for the Weekend's theme is 'Happiness / Joy'.

This postcard show an object which brings a lot of joy:



As a mail lover you immediately know why :-)

In case of doubt: see what joyful Postcrossing stamps on the back side this postcard returned to me, after having traveled to Malaysia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and back to my country:



A person who brings much joy and happiness, too, is Krtek, or Molletje (Little Mole) as we name him in Dutch. Created by Czech animator Zdeněk Miler, Little Mole shows us how to live happy, with friends and in harmony with nature:



I see DawnTreader has chosen a happy Krtek postcard for this weekend, too, and I think one never will get enough of this friendly and smart mole. The Mole always gets nice solutions to everyday's problems. And even to big problems, as my favourite Little Mole movie proofs (Mole in the city - Molletje in de stad - Krtek ve městě). The Little Mole in the City movie follows the adventures of Krtek and his sidekicks Hedgehog and Rabbit as they head to the city after the forest, their home, has been taken over by industrialization.

Last but not least, there are two women who exactly know how to keep up happiness and joy, even at an elder age. Created by Finnish illustrator Inge Löök, they showed up on this postcard which landed in my mailbox yesterday and which caused a smile from ear to ear on my face, also for the back side.



I received it from Eva, and she suggested matching names for the two. Thanks a lot, Eva! I think I agree with you - be sure that a proper reply will be sent as soon as possible!

See more happy postcards at and via Maria's Postcards for the Weekend!

Postcards for the Weekend: December holidays

This 'Postcards for the Weekend' theme is 'December holidays'.
Nowadays here in the Netherlands many people send x-mas and new year's wishes via email, whatsapp or other social media. However, still (folded) cards are sent, fortunately, too.

And fortunately people from other countries are sending nice wishes, too. I am happy to have received some from abroad recently:

From Shufen from Malaysia:



I think it funny that the card shows a horse, because the Dutch word for horse ('paard') rhymes with the Dutch word for card ('kaart'), and this way it is a christmas paard-kaart.




Elena from Belarus created the following pretty card. As I love music, I am happy she chose this music notes background:



On the colourful envelope an also colourful December stamp:




Also Hana Ehagaki creates wonderful cards. From Japan she sent me this Happy New Year wish, brought to us by this ウォッチドッグ, watchdog:



On the back a special postmark and an other interesting stamp print:




In our half of the world we think the 1st of January marks the New Year. You can ask yourself if that is a logical day. In other parts of the world there are other first-day-of-the-new-year-days. And I think some of them more logical. Like the first day in spring, the day of the vernal equinox. Or, as the following postcard has been dedicated to, the new moon of the first lunar month.



The (Chinese) New Year of the Dog will start on 16 February 2018. So although not celebrated in December (thus not really matching this Postcards for the Weekend's theme), I post it today, because it is a New Year's card, and I received it last week, thanks to ChenHuei from Taiwan.
She had added a special and matching pictoral postmark:



And on the back side of the card she added this, er, cat, or dog?




Find more season's greeting-cards at and via Postcards for the Weekend!

Sunday Stamps: 'M' is for milieuvriendelijk and molen

For Sunday Stamps' letter 'M' I chose a long word, however, in English it is even longer. An important subject, to my opinion: milieuvriendelijk.
In English: enviromentally friendly (milieu = environment, friendly = vriendelijk).

While on one hand we, humans, are polluting our world by consumption, traveling, etcetera, on the other hand fortunately more and more people are aware of the fact that we should take care of our earth. To stop polluting, to recycle waste, to consume less and to not use up the earth's resources.
There still is a long way to go. And on this long way there are some bright spots. For instance the fact that several postal services from all-over the world have issued stamps to spread the awareness.

This chaincard arrived home with stamps from six countries! South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Australia and the Netherlands:



In Europe many environmentally friendly stamps have been issued last year, for the theme of the 2016 Europe Stamps was 'Think Green'. I've posted some of these here in April. And I was happy to receive some more since then, like this Europe 2016 stamp from Slovakia:



And these, from Belarus, Ukraine and Estonia (and you can see the other - of two - Dutch Think Green stamp),



The Irish 'Minecraft'-like stamp still fascinates me:



This stamp from Serbia is one of my favourite 'milieuvriendelijke' stamps. Alas I had it in hands just for one day, because I had to forward it to someone else, and the sender from Serbia didn't have any more of these. Fortunately I could scan it and show it to you:




On many of the Europe 2016 'Think Green' stamps you see a wind turbine. In Dutch we name them 'windmolen' (plural 'windmolens'), or windturbine. The older type of windmills we name 'windmolen', too, although most of the time the simple name 'molen' is used for them.

The Netherlands are well-known for its molens. But of course you know that molens can be find anywhere in the world, like these pretty stamps are proofing. I received them from John from the United Kingdom:



The one on the stamp on the left we tend to name 'watermolen' instead of simply 'molen'. But the front side of the card shows a lot more molens:




See what other stamp lovers have chosen for this Sunday's theme 'M', at and via Sunday Stamps!

Sunday Stamps: 'K' is for krant and kasteel

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is the letter 'k'.

Inspired by Violet's post of today, I thought to share the Dutch word for 'newspaper', illustrated by stamps from Mexico, Russia and the Netherlands. In Dutch we name the newspaper 'krant'.
As far as I know, in several languages words for 'newspaper' contain some part meaning news, or time, or day, and so. For example in the German word 'Zeitung', Zeit means time. Or the French 'journal', jour = day, and in the Spanish 'periódico', 'period' has to do with time also. And 'newspaper' of course contains the word 'news'. See more translations of the word 'newspaper' via Wikipedia. The Dutch word 'krant' appears to have nothing to do with day (dag), time (tijd) or paper (papier). However, it origins from the French word 'courant' which means current, commonly, present, and the old word (plural) 'couranten' meant 'current notifications'.

I found a few stamps showing newspapers. I don't know most of these newspapers so I cannot tell which signature they have or on what 'level of quality' they are.
For example, Dutch most well-known newspaper was 'wrong' in WW2 and nowadays brings news in a sensational, not always fair way. Despite of that, and to my surprise, it alas is the best selling newspaper in the Netherlands.

Kranten (plural of krant) have been pictured on stamps from Mexico:



From Russia:



From the Netherlands:



(A newspaper and a cup of coffee to my opinion is a very pleasant combination :-) )



In contrary to the above-mentioned best selling newspaper, the 'Parool' was 'right' in WW2. It has been founded in 1940 and helped positively in the Dutch resistance against the Nazis.

The stamps above and below have been issued in 1985, 40 years after WW2 has ended.



A newspaper which is considered being of good quality (though not selling as much as the first-mentioned newspaper), is the NRC Handelsblad. When I was a child this newspaper published stories of Ollie B. Bommel and Tom Poes every day. A kind of comics, that is, pictures above and printed text below.
In 1996 the following stamp sheet was issued. I immediately had to think of the NRC newspaper. And first I thought to not post this sheet here, but then I noticed the selvage on the left, and the text, which starts saying: 'Spring had come and mister Bommel was sitting under the blooming pear tree, reading his newspaper.'



After reading the newspaper, before putting in it the recycling bin, you can make all kinds of nice things of it:



It might be clear that I have a strong preference of some of the Dutch newspapers to some other newspaper. Do you have strong opinions on the different newspapers issued in your countries?


An other word starting with the letter 'k', and probably immediately understood by all of you, is 'kasteel'.
In 2017, the Europe stamps theme is 'castles', and I am so lucky to have received some of these stamps.

From Turkey, Belarus, Russia, Estonia, and of course one of the two Dutch castle stamps:



From Greece:



From Spain, with a funny postmark:



From Spain, with a modest postmark - thus showing more of the stamp:



From Serbia:



And the other of the two Dutch stamps:



By the way, thanks to Eva, recently a postcard arrived which happens to show an other Spanish castle, the Almodovar Castle:



Worth a stamp, too, don't you think so?!

Find more stamps on the letter 'k' at and via today's Sunday Stamps!

Sunday stamps: books, authors

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'books / authors'.

According to many postcrossing profiles, books are popular among mail lovers. And among mailing people there are several librarians. Thanks to John I received this stamp which shows a library. It is one of my favourites as it shows the evolution of reading. And, according to Royal Mail, the evolution of information technology:



Belarus Post has issued these stamps in 1997 in honour of one of the first book printers in Eastern Europe, Frantzisk Skaryna (for more information, see for instance here and here):




Similar to mail, books connect the writer and the reader. And sometimes postage stamps themselves connect countries, via joint issues.
This stamp I received thanks to Eva, and connects Morocco and Monaco:



Dutch PostNL happens to have issued a book stamp sheet recently. Only after purchasing this stamp sheet and reading the words in the selvage, I learned that 2016 was the 'Year of the Book'! Did you know is was?



Two books of which I used to mix up the title and author, for the title is a person's name, are Don Quixote and Max Havelaar.

Regarding the first mentioned: these Spanish stamps have been designed on behalf of a contest in honour of the author Miguel de Cervantes.
The book character Don Quixote and his good friend Sancho Panza you can see on the stamp on the left. And I am not sure whether the portrait on the right is the book character or the author:



Concerning Max Havelaar, he isn't the writer but the main character of the book 'Max Havelaar', written in 1860 by Multatuli, pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker.
The stamp shows a portrait of the author, and a quote from the book. 'Ik groet u allen zeer' means 'I'm greeting all of you very much'.

Although I've never read Multatuli's Max Havelaar ('Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company'), I think it an important book. In colonial times the Europeans have done a lot of harm to the people in the countries they colonized. Multatuli was one of the few who, by for instance this book, openly critized the abuses of colonialism, in this case in the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia).



I hope to find some time some day to read this book. But - maybe you recognize it: my 'to-read'pile' is large..


A book on the selvage you can see here, it belongs to a stamp of the famous children's book character Paddington Bear:



What else to do with books?
You can keep them above your head, as did the woman on this Japanese illustration:



The image is part of a woodcut print, created in 1854 by Utagawa Kunisada, as part of a serie 'parody at six poets'. The artwork is in the Rijksmuseum, whose collection you also can find on the internet. The complete picture you can see here.
The stamp is part of a ten stamps sheet, issued in 2013 in honour of the Rijksmuseum. You can see the other (non-book) stamps and more details here.

Finally: what would books be without readers?
This pretty colourful stamp I received from Russia:



See more stamps related to this theme at and via today's Sunday Stamps!

Sunday Stamps: the colour Red

This Sunday Stamps theme is 'the colour red'.
I thought I only had a few, but viewing the stamp through 'red glasses' learned me that there is a lot! Among them this selection.


Post-related red is the mailbox, in many countries:

from Malaysia:



from Myanmar, on a Thai stamp:



from the United Kingdom:



An old one from the Netherlands (nowadays they are orange and have two grey legs):



More post-related red you can see on these Dutch stamps, issued for the introduction of the postal code in 1978:






Red in crafts:

A rooster in cross stitch, from Belarus:



From China:




Ladies in/and red:

The famous French one:



Red blood, Dutch stamp issued to promote blood donation:




Red animals:

Beetle from Korea:



Fish from Japan:



Horses, one in red from Germany:



and two red horses, from Argentina:



And from Taiwan:



See more red in stamps at Sunday Stamps and via the links mentioned there.