Sunday Stamps: 'Z' is for zee, zeeschelp and zwemmen

We made it! In 26 weeks the owner of Sunday Stamps posted stamps of all 26 letters from the alphabet, and she made us - Sunday Stamps and Mail Lovers - do the same! Congratulations to all, and many thanks to Violet, thank you for hosting Sunday Stamps so carefully!

So, the last letter of the alphabet is 'Z'. In English pronounced as 'zea', in Dutch we name this letter 'zet'.

The first stamp I want to share with you is about the zee, sea in English. Zee is pronounced as [zey] or [zay] like in 'hey' and 'hay' (is there any difference in pronounciation between hey and hay? - I don't hear it!..).
And the letter Z is not only for zee, but also Zeeland, literally 'sea-land', which is the name of the province in the zuidwesten - south west - of the Netherlands. The country New Zealand is named after this province.



Last week this province was in the news and some historical movies were shown on television, because of a sad anniversary: in the night of 31 January - 1 February 1953 the North Sea Flood took place, and this flood took the lives of many victims.
This was the start of a dike protection plan, the so-called Deltaplan, to construct the Deltawerken (Delta Works). The construction took many years, and finally, in 1986 the main parts of the Deltawerken were finished. This stamp has been issued in 1986 in honour of the Deltawerken. The text says 'Deltawerken voltooid' ('Delta works completed') but in fact it was the main parts which were finished, and in 1986 the Oosterscheldekering was inaugurated. Finally, after more than 40 years of construction, in 1997 the last part of the Deltawerken was completed (which does not mean the end of all construction works: nowadays one has to maintain it!).
So, on this 1986 stamp you can see a part of the zee, a part of Zeeland and the forementioned part of the Deltawerken.

The province Zeeland is famous for the mussel cultivation (including selling / eating). I couldn't find a stamp showing a mussel, but today that is no problem as 'mossel' doesn't start with a 'z'. But fortunately I found a look-a-like, which at least is a zeeschelp - a sea shell, on this pretty stamp bwhich Eva has sent to me from Morocco:



One activity we can do in the zee is zwemmen (to swim). You also can do it in a zwembad (swimming pool), and some people make a match of it - zwemsport (swimming sports).
Coincidentally this 'chaincard' arrived back to me recently, after having been traveling to Thailand, Taiwan and Russia, where kind stamp lovers added stamps showing zwemmers (swimmers) to my card (and I added the Dutch zwemsport stamps to theirs). This is the result:



See what other 'Z' themed stamps others have found at and via today's Sunday Stamps!

In: from Spain, France, Morocco

Today Sinterklaas aka Saint Nicolas arrived in Friesland, the northern part of the Netherlands, after a long trip by steam boat from Spain. And tomorrow he will visit Amsterdam, our capital.
However.. Already yesterday the Sint arrived in my mailbox! Not with his horse Amerigo, but accompanied by a lovely Donkey. And not from Spain, as he did today, but from France, via Morocco!

As proven by this wonderful tree stamp:




Thank you very much, Eva!

In: from Morocco (and Italy and Poland)

A beautiful piece of mail art arrived from Morocco, thanks to Eva who created this great Mail Cat.

And the mail traveled fast: written 22nd of October, postmarked on 23 October by Moroccan Post, and it arrived in the right mailbox in Netherlands on 27 October!



Inside two postcards of a favourite drink (be it that I prefer it with milk, no sugar, so I think the mug bottom right might be my favourite :-) ). The drawn one Eva had bought for me during her trip to Rome, the other came from Poland.



A close-up of the stamp, issued in 2016 in honour of International Women's Day:




Thank you very much, Eva, moltes gràcies!

In: from Brussel and Maroc

Last weekend's theme for Postcards for the Weekend was 'anything you wish'.
I was too busy with posting stamps for Sunday Stamps and doing other things so far, so finally exactly inbetween two weekends I am posting my contribution..

Received from Eva, already almost a year ago, but finally here they are, two pretty smurfcards, from Brussel via Morocco:





I love the way Moroccan Post most of the time uses two postmarks:



Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

Curious to know what postcards other mail lovers choose when they get the opportunity? Check Maria's blog post and the links mentioned there!

In: from Morocco and Cadiz

Camels in Morocco and Kuifje and Captain Haddock visiting Cadis/Cádiz.



I was happy to receive both postcards, along with beautiful stamps, sent from different countries. Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

Postcards for the weekend: City views

This weekend's theme of Postcards for the Weekend is 'City views' (at daylight).

A nice way to visit a city is to travel by train. To me railway stations in many cases are a gateway to a city, because you can enter the heart of the city directly. In contrary to highways, not to speak from parking problems in at least the Dutch main cities.



Eva sent me these two postcards of the Atocha Railway station in Madrid. A city I never have visited so far, even though my family is hispanophilic - my brother and sister-in-law even chose to live in the south of Spain many years ago and they are still living there, along with my niece and nephew who have been born there.



An other place I have never been to but which I should visit - at least this interesting architectured museum Guggenheim - is Bilbao, in the north of Spain:



From Spain to the south there is Morocco. I received this pretty postcard from Essaouira, a city at the West coast of the country:




Stamp on the envelope containing the Madrid postcards (thus sent from Morocco):



Stamp on the Bilbao postcard:



Stamp accompanying the sea gulls:




See more beautiful city view postcards on this weekend's Postcards for the Weekend, and follow the links mentioned.

In: from Morocco (and Taiwan)

Pretty mail from Eva! The postcard shows a photo, made by Chie from Taiwan, and although originally made for Eva, Eva forwarded it to me, because I love wind turbines.

And I received a so-called 'blanco negro gris' - 'black white grey' letter, as a successor of a beautiful rainbow coloured letter (which I still have to post).
Eva added these two great animal illustrations to her kind words:



:-)



:-)))

Both postcard and letter arrived the same day, on the 13th of June. However, they must have been sent on different days, as the letter's postmark says 17 May, and the postcard's postmark 5th of (May of June?).





Thank you very much, Eva!

In: from Morocco

A nice mixture, connection, between the digital and the analogue world I received today from Eva.
The image has been made by German artist/typographer Harald Geisler.

Eva herself is an artist and typographer, too, which is proofed by the wonderful typography on the envelope:



The stamp has been issued last year for the 41st anniversary of the 'Green March'.

The card is part of a larger serie of postcards. Eva was so kind to send already three to me. Among these also this delicious cake:



The best choice of cakes, as in general I am not so fond of eatable cakes, but I am fond of fonts!

Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

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!

In: from Morocco

I love birds and I love (living) fish. Eva made my day by sending this card, showing on the back a matching fish stamp, and in front an unusual view: of many birds (but it seems that the sea gulls prefer eatable fish).

The photo also shows part of the 500 years old walls of the city Essaouira. The name 'Essaouira' comes from the Tamazight word 'Tassort' which means (small) wall. The city's former name is 'Mogador'. Nowadays it is a UNESCO world heritage site.



Thank you very much, Eva!

Sunday Stamps: Orange

This Sunday's theme of Sunday Stamps is 'Orange, yellow'.

The stamp which immediately came into mind, because it shows much yellow and even more orange, is this painting by famous painter Mark Rothko:




Pretty orange backgrounds are shown in the following two stamps, both happen to connect two countries:

The Monaco and Morrocan flag on this joint issue stamp from Morocco, and a lot of orange under the book:



From Thailand, orange behind a mailbox from Myanmar:




Almost monochromatic are these two stamps, issued on a ten stamp sheet in honour of Dutch letter writers:



The man pictured is Leo Vroman (1915-2014), a Dutch-American writer, hematologist (the book I've read is an autobiography, also about blood), poet, illustrator.


Finally a stamp which I like to share, is this one from Spain, showing a dear object. Which raises the question: is it orange or is it yellow?!



See more stamps on this theme on and via this Sunday's Sunday Stamps!

In: from Morocco

From Eva I received this wonderful combination of a map card of Africa: both on a postcard and on the stamp.

The figure on the stamp has been created by the well-known artist Giacometti (of whom I always had thought he was Italian, but just now I learned he was born in Switzerland), and the map card below has been created by Marianne Sztyma from Poland.



Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!