Sunday Stamps: B is for Bridge is Brug

Today's theme of Sunday Stamps is the letter 'B'.

Thanks to Eva I received this beautiful stamp, showing a bridge, 'brug' in Dutch.



Which happens to be no bridge at all, do you see that?

See more stamps on the letter 'B' at today's Sunday Stamps.

Postcards for the Weekend: Water

This weekend's theme for Postcards for the Weekend is 'Water in any form'.

A good opportunity to share this postcard, which Eva had sent me from Cádiz. I love bridges on postcards, and there where are bridges, most of the time there's water, of course.
And this multiview card shows a lot of water, in a variety of colours!



How nice to see stamps from the same city:



There is also water on maps. For example around the Wadden isle Texel (postcard sent to Eva),



The stamp I added shows more water around a kind of isle (in fact: a continent, Australia), water on a map:



Salt water from the sea on an illustration by Fiep Westendorp:



Fresh water from the air on this illustration of Kikker (Frog) by Max Velthuijs:



Check Postcards for the Weekend to find more postcards on the theme 'water'!

Postcards for the Weekend: reflections on water

Thanks to a comment from Maria on one of my Sunday Stamps blog posts, I learned to know her great project 'Postcards for the Weekend'.

Usually I don't scan my incoming postcards, except for the few I'm posting on this blog. In contrary, most of my outgoing postcrossing postcards I did scan. If you don't mind that I'm also posting outgoing postcards for weekends (as I don't always have the opportunity to scan my received postcards), I will happily join!

This weekend's theme is 'Reflections on water'.

I've sent this, little reflected, hippopotamus to a hippopotamus loving postcrosser:



And this typical Dutch scenery (well, ice is not so common anymore since years), now is in hands of a postcrosser in Taiwan. The mills you see belong to the windmills of Kinderdijk:



See more reflections in waters at this weekend's blog post and via the links mentioned there.

Sunday stamps: Water birds

This time the Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Water Birds'.
As I love birds this is an other favourite subject of mine!

The first two stamps I love to share with you I've published before, be it not for Sunday Stamps. Thanks to FinnBadger I received these two wonderful sea birds: a Frigatebird and a Tufted Puffin. Both on an awesome envelope, made out of a calendar page showing birds by Charley Harper. The Flamingo of course is a water bird, too.
And - thank you FinnBadger for correcting me - I first thought the Frigatebird had been created by this famous artist, too, but it appears to have been designed by Tyler Lang, who has created many more animals illustrations, which at first sight remind me of Charley Harper's birds, but when you look close their style is so different!



The puffin has been designed by Robert Giusti.

And as puffins belong to my most favourite birds and Harper to one of my favourite artists (he has created a lot of bird pictures) and Tyler Lang's artwork I think inspiring, too, no need to say that FinnBadger's mail made my day :-)

In the Netherlands also various birds have been imaged on stamps.
These two stamp sheets have been issued in 2003 as a tribute to the Dutch wad in the Wadden area. The images have been designed by Eke van Mansvelt.



You can see the 'Scholekster'(Eurasian Oystercatcher), the 'Lepelaar' (Spoonbill), two kinds of Geese, the 'Grote Mantelmeeuw' (Great black-backed gull, I guess - there are a lot of kinds of sea gulls), the 'Wulp' (Eurasian curlew), some non-bird animals
and on the sheet itself the 'Visdief' (Common Tern), 'Plevieren' (Plovers).



The Wadden is a part of the north Sea, south of the so-called Wadden Islands. Since 2009 it is a UNESCO world heritage site, nevertheless the area is threatened, by pollution, by business plans etcetera, so I hope (and in fact expect) the area will continue to be protected.

By the way, the postage has increased a lot since 2003. In that year we had to pay € 0,39 for national mail and € 0.59 for international mail (all up to 20 grams). Anno 2016 it is € 0.73 for national mail and € 1.25 for international mail..

See more Sea Birds - and Charley Harper stamps! - at and via the links under this Sunday's Sunday Stamps blog!

In: from Spain (and Taiwan)

Wind and water...
I love wind turbines, as they provide us with clean energy.
Eva was so generous to send me this wonderful photo, which has been made for her by Chi from Taiwan.

The wind turbines came in a great suitable envelope, with a stamp showing clean water.



Thank you very much, Eva! And via you, thanks a lot to Chi!

In: from France

Some years ago I was in the south of Spain, and along the way I suddenly saw flamingoes in the wild. I was surprised, because until that day I always had thought these amazing birds were living in countries more southward.
Last week, also to my suprise, I learned that flamingoes even are living north from Spain, too. This postcard shows flamingoes in Sigeán, in the south of France.

The card came with more than one stamp.



Thank you very much, merci beaucoup, Val!

Sunday stamps: Water

Today's theme of Sunday Stamps is 'Water'.
We need water on one hand, and we can be afraid of water on the other hand.

The stamp on top reminds me of drinking water, so 'needed' water, although it must be the river Donau (Danube) inbetween Budapest. I happened to have received this beautiful Hungarian stamp yesterday, thanks to Micu from Mail a Smile!
The sheet is so big that the bottom part was folded to the back side of the envelope.


The following Dutch stamps are result of one of the dangers of water. They have been issued because of the major finishing of the construction of the Delta Works, a series of construction projects (dams, sluices, locks, dykes, levees, storm surge barriers) in the southwest of the Netherlands, to protect a large area around the Rhine-Maas-Schelde delta from the sea. This construction started because of the disasterous North Sea flood which caused many deaths in the Dutch province of Zeeland, and also in Belgium and the United Kingdom, in the year 1953. It occured in the night of 31 January to 1 February 1953, so today exactly 62 years ago.