Sunday stamps: 'B' is for 'brief', 'bellen' and 'blindengeleidehond'

I love 'false friends': words which in one language have a certain meaning, and which have in an other language a totally different meaning.

That is the case with the word 'brief'. In English 'brief' means 'short'. But the Dutch word 'brief' has a meaning which I guess you all might like: 'epistle', 'letter'!



On the first stamp Nijntje (Miffy) is writing a brief (letter).
And on the second stamp you see the happy receiver of this brief (letter).



An other funny false friend is the verb (not noun) 'bellen', a false friend between German and Dutch.

In Dutch, the verb 'bellen' means 'to make a phone call'. In German, 'bellen' means... 'to bark' (in Dutch: blaffen).

Here you see some people 'aan het bellen' (calling),



And talking about barking (blaffen), the type of dog on the next stamps doesn't bark a lot, but works hard instead, to help to guide blind people.
In Dutch he/she is named 'blindengeleidehond' (blinden = blind people (plural), geleiden = to guide, hond = dog).
Sunny was the first guide dog in the Netherlands and started to work in 1935, the founding year of the KNGF (Royal Dutch Guide Dog Foundation).



The characters on top are from the Braille alphabet, named after Louis Braille and thus has the same name in Dutch, English and German.


See more stamps concerning the 'B' at and via today's Sunday Stamps.

Sunday Stamps: Health & welfare

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Health and welfare'.

The first stamp concerns health and disease. It was issued in 1978 and I like the cartoonish design, made by the famous (in our country) cartoonist Opland.

The text says 'donornieren redden levens': 'donor kidneys save lives'. Which is a plea for healthy people to register themselves as a donor, because registering does not happen automatically in our country (which is the case in, for example, our neighbouring country Belgium) and there's always shortage of donor organs.



I was pleased to read that Violet combined the themes 'health' and 'welfare' in today's Sunday Stamps. I think they are much related to each other.
'Health' not only is the absence of disease, but also a state of well-being, be it that the old WHO definition of health as complete wellbeing is no longer fit for purpose given the rise of chronic diseases.
That is where 'welfare' comes in!

These three 'ouderenpostzegels' ('elderly stamps') were issued in dedication to the 'welfare of the elderly' theme. A 'telephone circle', connects people and can help in practical things, in checking whether the elder person is o.k. or in need of help, and also can help against loneliness. In future I expect things to go digital, but at this moment for a lot of people contacts via telephone still are contributing to welfare.



See more 'health and welfare' stamps at today's Sunday Stamps!

Sunday stamps: Telephones

Today's theme of Sunday Stamps is 'Anything you wish'.
It was hard to think of one theme, because there are so many beautiful stamps and so many themes to choose.
First I thought of musical instruments, always a favourite theme, and Hawwa inspired me by this blog post (it's this year's theme for Europe!) and by sending beautiful Spanish stamps showing string instruments, like these ones.

But then I thought that 'Musical instruments' might have been, or will be one day, a theme for Viridian's Sunday Stamps already. As have been/will be themes like 'Postage stamps on stamps', 'Mailboxes' and other popular themes for snail mail lovers like us.
So it would be good to choose something else. Finally I found it:

Telephones!

These three stamps have been issued in 1994 'for the elderly':



The present main Dutch telephone company ('KPN') used to be part of one national government-owned enterprise, which also included the Mail company: PTT (Posterijen, Telegrafie en Telefonie: mail, telegraph and telephone).
In 1989 the PTT became independent of the government, and the name changed into KPN (Koninklijke PTT Nederland: Royal PTT Netherlands), including PTT Post and PTT Telecom as main companies.
The state was the only owner until KPN went to the stock market in 1994. In 1998 there was a dissociation: the mail went on in a company named TPG, later TNT, now PostNL, and the telephone branch as KPN.
These stamps have been issued for the aforementioned milestones in 1989 and in 1994:





Here you can see a complete Telephone:



And how times have been changing! Nowadays most telephones have lost their 'line'.
This stamp, issued as part of a 10-pieces stamp sheet for the 100th anniversary of the Dutch Open Air Museum, is titled 'youngsters with a smartphone':