Snow Soft

I received this postcard from Kate in Russia for the February 50 Round Robin. It was in my favourites so I am very happy to have received it. Naturally I picked it because of the adorable sleeping cats ^_^

The artist is Anna Petrova and she appears to have quite a few postcards, all in this charming and whimsical style.

On the back of the card it says 'снежные-нежные' which according to Google translates as 'Snow-Soft'.

Old Tom Gin

This is an advertisement poster circa 1880 for Cordial Old Tom Gin distilled by Boord & Son of London and apparently distributed in the USA by Du Vivier & Co of New York.

Gin is an alcoholic beverage whose flavour comes primarily from Juniper berries. The name 'Gin' comes from either the French 'genièvre' or the Dutch 'jenever' both of which mean Juniper. There have apparently been various forms of gin over the years and Old Tom Gin was a slightly sweetened version that was popular in the 1700's in England (so long before this advert). It was a cloudy drink back then and only became the clear liquid known today when distillation methods improved.

I love this postcard but remember dogs and cats should never drink alcohol! (And nor should humans in my opinion.)

A Chamber Opera

I received this beautiful postcard from Russia when I took part in the Alphabetical tag on the Postcrossing Forum. Have you ever taken part in a tag? It can be lots of fun! The lovely person who tagged me checked my favourites ^_^

This is actually a poster, circa 1885 for a chamber opera. What is a chamber opera? I had no idea myself so I asked wikipedia who tells me:

Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra.

The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small performance spaces.

So now I know! However I cannot imagine the story of Puss in Boots performed as an opera, even a small one.

Oddly enough I was just reading about Benjamin Britten the other day because he and WH Auden collaborated on an opera using the words of Auden's poem 'Stop all the clocks'. I happened to be looking it up because I took part in Emilie's 'Adopt Penguin Books Postcards' project. It will be interesting to see how long the cards take to travel back to the USA.

This was a post for Postcard Friendship Friday at "The Best Hearts are Crunchy". Check out the other participants to see more lovely postcards!

The Sound that Isn't

I had never heard of Milford Sound until I received this postcard from New Zealand. I actually though the word 'Sound' was only used for bays in North America but it turns out there are 'Sounds' on every continent except Africa.

According to wikipedia:

In geography a sound or seaway is a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight, and wider than a fjord; or it may be defined as a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land (see also strait).

This definition seems both pedantic and contradictory at the same time. You would have to measure the length, width, depth of the bay in order to determine if it was larger, deeper or wider than other bodies of water only to discover that it is allowed to be narrow as long as land is on either side.

Anyway it turns out that the usage of the word is inconsistent and although Milford is called a Sound it is too narrow and is actually a Fjord.

Milford Sound was a finalist in the New 7 Wonders of Nature contest

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Mysterious Places

I am late today and after seeing Sheila's blog I decided to also feature an ancient site - however a lot more is known about the ancient civilizations of South America than will probably ever be known about those of Africa.

Chichen Itza is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World although it is in fact really old - having been built around 600 CE (Common Era).

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A Delicious Day

This wonderful postcard above from Stéphanie in France via the France X Other Countries RR was just one of the 18 postcards and 1 folding card that I received in the mail today. What a Red Letter Day for me! Every postcard was beautiful but no less than 4 of these items were a complete and fantastic surprise - but more about that later.

Today I want to concentrate on this lovely cake. I was never much interested in recipe cards until I came across the Austrian recipe cards while surfing on postcrossing. Now one of them is mine and I like it very much so when I saw this in Stéphanie's selection for trade I knew I had to have it!

Brittany, also known as Little Britain, is a region on the west coast of France. To the north is the English Channel and Great Britain and as far as I know the Lesser and the Great were closely allied at one time. Breton, the language spoken in Brittany is a Celtic language similar to Welsh and Cornish.

Perhaps I am incorrect but I have always thought of these three regions; Wales, Cornwall and Brittany as Roman and associated with King Arthur.

Anyway so back to the cake. Here is the recipe as it is on the postcard in French.

Creuser une fontaine dans la farine et le sucre pour y mettre 5 jaunes d' oeufs. Travailler la préparation à la cuillère en bois puis frotter entre les paumes pour la rendre sableuse. Incorporer le beurre en petits morceaux et pétrir. Beurrer un moule pour y étaler la pâte. Badigeonner le gâteau de jaune d'oeuf. Mettre le moule dans le four chaud et laisser cuire environ 90 min. Servir ce gâteau breton accompagné de cidre doux.

350 g de farine
175g de sucre
6 jaunes d'oeufs
190g de beurre


Here it is translated by Google.

Digging a fountain into the flour and sugar to put 5 egg yolks. Work preparing for the wooden spoon and rub between your palms to make sand. Stir the butter into small pieces and knead. Butter a mold in order to roll out the dough. Brush the cake with egg yolk. Put the pan in the preheated oven and cook about 90 min. Serve this cake with Breton cider sweet.

350 g flour
175g sugar
6 egg yolks
190g butter


Sand? Okay thank-you very much Google but I think I will try this recipe I found at Bakespace. It is from Nigella Lawson's book 'How to Be a Domestic Goddess'.

Which of the following is your favourite cake?
	Chocolate Cake
	Carrot Cake
	Battenberg Cake
	Angel Cake
	Black Forest Cake
	Fruitcake
	Sachertorte
	Red Velvet Cake
	Butter Cake
	Sponge Cake
	Cheesecake
	Other
pollcode.com free polls

On another topic completely, do you know that the Google translator has a nifty feature called the Virtual Keyboard?

Just choose your language at the top as normal and then use the virtual keyboard to type. Great for Russian!

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.

Tintin and Snowy

I am so happy! Just this morning I was envious of Anna who had received a Tintin postcard. This afternoon I received my own, very first ever Tintin and Snowy card from the wonderful Andrea in Austria! Thank-you!

When I was about 11 or so I was crazy about Tintin and Asterix. Our school library had copies but they were very expensive and couldn't be issued so I spent a lot of breaks curled up in a big leather chair reading them. It was horrible when the bell rang and I had to go back to class, especially if it was in the middle of an exciting part!

In other news .. I was mentioned by name on Gem's World Postcards so I am famous! Glen has the most fantastic collection of postcards from all sorts of places. It is brilliant to pick a place in the side bar and see how many cards he has! British Virgin Islands - check! Cocos ( Keeling ) Islands - check! Qatar - check!

A Month of Letters

Mary Robinette Kowal, an author, has started a challenge: 'A Month of Letters'. The aim is to write a piece of mail for every day in February that the USPS is open (not Sundays or Public Holidays). So only 24 items! Easy peasy! I mean I am already doing the February 50 RR at the Postcrossing Forum so I will complete the challenge anyway!

I first saw her button as an avatar at the Postcrossing Forum but now I am seeing it on lots of websites and Missive Maven even wrote about it on her blog.

You can register at the site and see a list of other participants and send friend requests. Here is my profile.

A New Year Dragon

According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar system 2012 starts on January 23rd and is the 4,709th Chinese year! There are 12 Animal Branches that fall in the following order: Rat, Ox/Cow, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster/Chicken, Dog and Pig.

I was born in 1973, an Ox year and this is what I have read about it:

Those born under the influence of the Ox are fortunate to be stable and persevering. The typical Ox is a tolerant person with strong character. Not many people could equal the resolution and fearlessness the Ox exhibits when deciding to accomplish a task or an objective.

I have to tell you that is all completely untrue! I wish I had those characteristics.

This lovely pink Dragon came from Kotona in Japan via Choose a Country RR.

I received a great message this evening from an American Swapbot user who finally received the 'One Sentence Journal - October' that I made and posted on Nov 12, 2011! How amazing is that! It arrived in a plain white envelope. I sent it in a handmade envelope made from a calender but the Post Office must have taken exception to this and decided to put it in their own envelope and keep it for a bit before sending it on. Or perhaps it was delayed at this end?

My mother warned me about my handmade envelopes and the way I write the addresses on them (why shouldn't the address go up the giraffes leg I ask??) but I said "These are postal workers - they get the mail through rain or shin, snow or hail!" Well I was right ^_~ Thank-you USPS!

Great Buddha

This is the Great Buddha of Todaiji Temple in Nara, a major city in Japan. This is an Official card.

First Bobcat

My very first Bobcat has arrived from the USA thanks to Erin and the Choose a Country RR. Bobcats are from the genus Lynx and live in North America. Apparently there are a number of subspecies ranging geographically from the south of Canada to the north of Mexico. All Lynx have short tails, none live in Africa. :( I am exceedingly pleased to have received this very cute cat ^_~

Boldt Castle

This absolutely brilliant postcard came from Heather for the Hometown RR. Boldt Castle is situated on Hart Island, one of the many islands of a chain in the Saint Lawrence River. For me the best part of this picture are the statues of the stags. A stag is an adult male deer. Another word for an adult deer is hart.

A Little Bear from Belarus

This gorgeous little Brown Bear cub arrived from coralfish in Belarus for the Baby Animals RR Group #178. Brown Bears are found over much of Northern Europe and Asia as well as in North America. The Grizzly Bear and the Kodiak Bear are sup-species. Did you know there are no bears found in Africa. How sad.

There are 18 postcards in this series of Fauna of Belarus and so far I have 2!

Postcards Received on 27th January

I received so many lovely postcards today. This is just a small selection. The above was from Jan in America via the All about Nature RR and I really like it.

I do not usually like multiview postcards but I liked the two above. Both Dokkum in the Netherlands and Heidelberg in Germany are on rivers and I think this is charming. Both these cards are via the Hometown RR

Hamburg Nights

This wonderful card was sent to me by Olivia for the Choose a Country RR. Awesome photo!

Reindeer Sledding

I cannot even begin to express how much I love this card. It is one of my favourites of all. When I was small one of my favourite fairy tales was the 'The Snow Queen' by Hans Christian Andersen and the part I loved the best was when Gerda travels to Lapland with a Reindeer as her companion. I have loved Reindeer and the North ever since then.

This was sent to me by Anna from Russia via the Animals RR.

Anna is always thoughtful in her choice of stamps. These feature Reindeer, a Snow Leopard and a Bear!

A Family of Wild Boar

This adorable family of little boars arrived from Lotty in Belgium via the Native Animal RR. Their stripes make me very happy ^_^

Suomenlinna

A postcard of Suomenlinna, Finland via Choose a Country RR. This postcard is special because it was signed by four postcrossers at a meeting in Helsinki on 16th December 2011.

Both the stamp and the canceller are marvelous as well.

Apple Strudel

I am not a big fan of cooked apple but I love this card. It was one of my faves at postcrossing and it was sent to me by Stefan for the Choose a Country RR. I have seen that there are others in this series, just as lovely and now I want them all ^_~