A Window With a View

Right after I started being active on Postcrossing again in September last year I received a message from a wonderful girl (Ptawka) who offered to send me a card of hers that I had favourited. This is the card. It got a bit smudged by postal ink but I think that adds to the charm. Ptawka says she has a grey cat who never goes out because there are many stray dogs in Kiev so he loves to watch the birds from the windowsill. The picture, the stamps she used and her lovely message have made this one of my favourite received cards.

99 Cats and 1 Dog

Can you spot the one dog??

Tournee du Chat Noir

This is possibly one of my favourite postcards of all time. It is an iconic advert by artist Théophile Steinlen for a cabaret called 'The Black Cat' created and hosted by Rodolphe Salis in the 1880's and 1890's. This was sent to me by Anna when she went on holiday to Spain.

Will Barnet

This is just the kind of postcard I love! Why? Because it has a painted cat in it! This is art by Will Barnet, an American artist. I also love that the cat is so huge - almost as big as the boy ^_~ This is an official Postcrossing card.

Week 12 of 2010

I received this fantastic postcard of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park from PostMuse last Friday. It was posted on the 8th of March from Pittsburgh and was therefore in the mail for 11 days. It is another UNESCO site and the 2nd for my UNESCO collection.

I received this postcard from Ilona (aka The Missive Maven) yesterday. Isn't it beautiful?

It was posted on the 7th of March as far as I can tell so it was in transit for 18 days from Rhode Island. What's up with that? Lately some mail from and to the USA has been taking an extraordinarily long time to arrive - 6 weeks in some cases.

The information on the back of the card reads:

Cat and Kitten, 1986, by Pamela Higgins Patrick (American). Pastel on paper.

I have been unable to discover anything about Ms Patrick but the postcard comes from The Cat Postcard Book © 1987 Running Press Book Publishers and that can be seen on Amazon.com here.

These are the wonderful stamps that Ilona used and she writes that all except the dragonfly stamp are vintage and more than 30 years old.

The Cardinal bird stamp was issued on 20th September, 1972 and is from a set of 4. The George Gershwin stamp is from a set entitled 'American Arts Commemoration' and was issued on 28th February, 1973. The flowers are for the 1982 Valentines Day and the dragonfly is from 2008.

Since last Friday I have received the following mail:

Various stamps I purchased off the internet

3 Postcards

A Swap-bot swap

2 letters via letternet.de

The Winter 2010 issue of The Letter Exchange

I have posted.... nothing. Oh dear. I have been so busy remodeling the shop where I work that I am absolutely exhausted at night. I spent most of today mooching around and doing nothing in particular. I hope to be more productive tomorrow.

I have 4 followers. Yay!!!