In: from France

I love comics-like illustrations, and I love lighthouses on postcards, so I was delighted to find this postcard in my mailbox, sent from France by Eva.
This is the bateau feu (French for lighthouse ship) Sandettié, named after the sand bank in the North Sea between France and the United Kingdom. A newer version, the Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic nowadays is used as a weather station.



Thank you very much, Eva!

Postcards for the Weekend: Anything you wish

This weekend's Postcard for the Weekend theme is 'Anything you wish'.

The following postcard I've held in my hands for just one day, and it caused a big smile on my face.
It had been traveling for some time already, as you see (great postmarks, don't you think so?). Being a so-called 'chaincard' it was in transit: the owner was someone else, so after its arrival I added matching stamps to the back of the card, and forwarded it to the next receiver, so that the card finally will come home at the first sender's place.



I had to read the text twice, three times, before I caught the essence, and then the big smile of recognition appeared and this postcard turned into one of my favourites. The wish, (un)spoken, is actual in the present stage in my life. For example, at the moment that this card arrived, my kids had autumn holidays, and I was supposed to have a few days off from work, too. But despite of my 'vacation', I wasn't 'off' really. No time to sit on the couch when coming home from work, because all daily tasks have to be done first.

I think illustrator Fiep Westendorp has shown this problem - many multitasking moms/workers will know - well in some of her cartoons, which she made in the 50-ies and 60-ies of the previous century for the newspaper Parool.
For example this postcard, one of my favourite Fiep drawings, too:




See the choices by other mail lovers at and via Maria's blogpost of this weekend!

Postcards for the Weekend: Bridges

This weekend's Postcards for the Weekend theme is 'Bridges'.

As some of you know, bridges are one of my favourite themes. They connect people, cities and sometimes even countries. No surprise that I posted several bridge stamps and postcards before.

First I'll take you to Asia, the continent I've never been to myself. Thanks to postcrossing and to instagram friends I 'traveled' virtually to beautiful places, by receiving and enjoying pretty postcards.

This postcard I received from a Postcrosser from China. The back of this card doesn't say where this bridge is located. The sender lives in Wuhan, so maybe this beautiful, quiet looking place might be in this area.



From my instagram friend Jael I received this postcard from Singapore. All attention, of both the artists and us, card watchers, goes to the Merlion, but looking close, you can see a bridge on the right. It's one of the bridges over the Singapore River.



This bridge I drew - as a postcard - for a mail art project in Indonesia. It is the Kahayan bridge in Palangkaraya, Borneo. I chose to draw it because the mail art project was in honour of the 60th anniversary of this Indonesian city.



From Asia to Europe.

In Venice there is a lot of water, and fortunately there are bridges, too. Most famous I think the Bridge of Sighs, but the bridge I received thanks to Rio is a more innocent one:



On the back side she added a matching stamp and postmark, showing a larger bridge from Venice:



From John I received a nice postcard showing maybe one of the most well-known bridges:



I replied by this postcard, which to my surprise was available in a local store, here in the Netherlands:



I don't know if it is a good or bad habit, but at least it made and makes me happy: when visiting familiar cities (among them Nijmegen, the city where I grew up, and Murcia in Spain, which is the home city of my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew) I sometimes send postcards to myself. Not that many, so far maybe 7 or so, but to my surprise the majority of the postcards show bridges.

Here you can see two bridges over the Rio Segura in Murcia:



This is the Railway bridge over the river Waal in Nijmegen:



The same bridge you can see in the very back of the photo on bottom on this card:



The two other bridges are the Waalbrug (my favourite bridge as it reminds me of my former 'home'), and a pedestrian bridge, which is new to me.


As a 'dessert' here are some stamps:

A bridge in a winter scene in Finland:



And bridges from Singapore, Hong Kong, Russia and the Netherlands, gathered in one chaincard about this theme:



The stamp bottom left shows a newly built bridge over the forementioined river Waal.

See more bridges at and via this weekend's Postcards for the Weekend!

In: from the United Kingdom - of Mail, Transport and Peter Rabbit

Mail transport, a tram and the railway station, to my opinion always nice themes to see. And I was happy that John sent these in one postcard!

On the back side more vehicles:



Also related to mail is of course the mailbox, a famous one from the United Kingdom is the red pillar box:



The stamp on the back side of this card is a 'bridge' to a postcard John had sent me some time ago, namely an illustration by Beatrix Potter of a character from the tales of Peter Rabbit. This is Benjamin Bunny, Peter's cousin:



The card sent / received previously shows Peter Rabbit himself, plus a squirrel and Jemima Puddle-Duck:



Peter Rabbit also shows up on a stamp, accompanied by a stamp of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, the hedgehog:



Thank you very much, John!

In: from Korea

Two beautiful bird collage cards by Kareem Rizk, sent to me from Korea by Kim JungYoun.



Beautiful stamps as well, and it is the first time that I see a smartphone on a stamp!



Thank you very much, Kim!

In: from Spain and Morocco

Three cards arrived the same day - 19th of January - while there have been many days to post between them!
Thank you, Eva, for sending and for your kind messages!

This Smurf traveled the longest distance, but also the shortest time according to the postmark (14th of January), and in an envelope (maybe that helps?):



He might have been floating on this peaceful lake:



Sent from Spain the 29th of December 2015, so traveling 3 weeks, was this postcard of Little Red Riding Hood (and 'lo que no vío' - what she didn't see), an illustration by Mar Ferrero:



With on the back side this Europe toys stamp:



Last but not least, the postcard which has been traveling the shortest distance and the longest time (a month: written the 20th of December) was this postcard from Madrid, showing the Palacio de Cibeles, the former Palace of Telecommunication, in which nowadays a cultural center and the main post office is located.



Which a matching stamp:



Thank you very much, Eva! Moltes gràcies!

In: from Korea

This beautiful map card above came along with this wonderful mail art, you see below, created by Kim JungYoun from Korea. She manages to make a kind of minimal mail art, which I admire, because I am not able to create it, as mine is always (too) full with details.



To the envelope she sticked this postage stamp, showing one of my favourite subjects: mail and mail related objects!



And inside the envelope some more envelopes, among them this one from Australia:



Which contained a nice brochure about animals, and three prints of drawings from Sydney, created by the Italian artist Pepe Gaka who is currently living in Sydney. Among them these two, of the famous Opera House and one of my favourite bridges, the Sydney Harbour Bridge:





She traveled to the USA as well, and found there these ad cards and postcard. Thank you so much for sharing, Kim!

Sunday stamps: professions

This Sunday Viridian choose 'Professions and trades' as theme for Sunday Stamps.

The Brazilian post has issued beautiful stamps on professions in 2005 and 2006. Here you see the manicure (manicurist), sapateiro (shoemaker) and costureira (tailor).



In our country there's a nation wide 'flea market' on King's Day in April. On this day everyone can sell his/her old stuff, and of course buy, too, all for small amounts. Last April I was looking for something else, when I suddenly found an old stamp collection book. With many empty pages, and I bought it to use it to have my own stamps organized. But I also was happy to find some old stamps in some of the pages. Among them this one from former West Germany. It has been issued in 1971 to pay attention to safety measures (you can see seven others from this serie here). And the profession shown is an important one. Thanks to construction workers we have warm houses, roads etcetera. While their hard work isn't that easy nor safe.



Also in this old album I found this stamp from Indonesia. I'm not exactly sure what kind of fabric she is making, but I think we humans can't live without the beautiful products made by fabric / textile workers.



And an other old stamp has been issued in Romania. Concerning Post, one of the most important workers for us snail mail lovers :-)



Last month the Dutch post issued a so-called 'postset', containing three postcards and a special issued stamp sheet called 'beroepen en ambachten', which means 'professions and trades'. How coincidental!
The stamp sheet shows a beautiful compilation of illustrations of professions: a blacksmith, postman, hairdresser (barber) and wooden shoe maker. The illustrations have been created by Rien Poortvliet (1932-1995). He was famous for the general public for his beautiful illustrations of animals (among them horses), old Dutch sceneries and 'drawn stories', for instance about gnomes. However, there was dispute whether his creations were 'art' or not. He finally found recognition as an artist when a museum of his works was opened, in 1992.

Sunday stamps: Mammals

Het thema van deze Sunday stamps is 'zoogdieren'. Het liefst zou ik postzegels willen laten zien van onszelf, de mens is per slot van rekening een zoogdier, maar helaas heb ik er geen in mijn collectie. 'Helaas', want het blijft scheef dat voor flesvoedingsfabrikanten ongebreideld reclame wordt gemaakt: op geboorte- en felicitatiekaartjes zie je volop melkflesjes, maar vrijwel nooit een kind aan de borst. Met als gevolg, zo is mijn en anderen hun ervaring, dat veel pasgeboren moeders niet gemakkelijk buitenshuis borstvoeding durven geven, en vaak ook zelfs thuis niet als er anderen bij zijn. Er heerst blijkbaar toch een soort taboe op, en door die onzichtbaarheid vergeten mensen dat borstvoeding gewoon normaal is...
In Nederland zijn niet eens officiële postzegels over 't onderwerp uitgegeven, in tegenstelling tot bijvoorbeeld Luxemburg, Polen (met een voorloper hier), San Marino (ook minstens twee keer, zie hier en hier), Oeganda, Algerije, Guatemala, Griekenland en Nicaragua.

Dus vandaag maar een ander zoogdier op postzegel, een van mijn meest favoriete: het vogelbekdier. Een zoogdier, dat zwemt en eieren legt!
Deze Australische postzegel stond al heel lang op mijn verlanglijstje, dus ik was heel blij toen ik 'm ontving. En sprong een gat in de lucht toen onderstaande envelop in de bus kwam, met nog meer vogelbekdierzegels!

This time the Sunday Stamps theme is 'Mammals'. I'd prefer to show stamps of ourselves: we human beings are mammals, too. The word 'mammal' comes from the Latin word 'mamma' which means 'breast', and the Dutch word for mammal, 'zoogdier', means 'breastfeeding animal'.
But alas I don't have any stamp of breastfeeding people. 'Alas', because I think it unfair that there is a lot of implicit advertisement for the formula industry: on birth- and congratulations cards for newborn children and parents there are a lot of bottles to see, while I hardly see similar cards showing a baby being nursed. To my and other's experience, many newborn mothers feel uneasy when nursing outside home, or even at home in front of friends or relatives. And by the fact that 'breastfeeding' seems to be banned from public views, it has become a kind of taboo. Despite of the fact that mother's milk is the normal feeding for a child, by this invisibility many people forget that...
Here in the Netherlands there never have been issued official stamps showing breastfeeding, while in other countries there are beautiful stamps on the subject, for instance Luxembourg, Poland (previously this one), San Marino (also at least twice; see here and here), Uganda, Algeria, Guatemala, Greece and Nicaragua.

So for today I choose an other mammal, one of my all-time favourites: the Platypus. This nursing hairy animal lays eggs! This postage stamp was on my wish list for a very long time, so you can imagine how happy I was when I received the stamp above from Australia. And I 'jumped a hole in the air' (Dutch expression) when I received the mail you see below, with even more Platypus stamps!

In: from the United Kingdom

Thank you very much, John!