Alderney

Alderney is the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands - it is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. The island's  area is 3 square miles, and the population close to 2150; which are similar numbers to my island, in fact we might be bigger on both accounts..! Makes it that much more special to receive postcards from there, thank you Petr :)

Stargazing At Arizona Desert

Anyone had any luck with the Perseids? Traditionally I see hardly any when I set out to do it - this year I even saw a few when not planned, just not when I actually expected to see them because of a later hour and less light pollution lol. Weird. 

This postcard comes from a tag with possibly the longest name in the history of tags (or not?) - Tag the latest sender from a country other than the last five posts.!. Its goal is to avoid repeated countries at the end of the tag. So I received this great desert night sky view from Michael, thank you :)

Mr SnowFox

Amid the newest heat wave, a bit of refreshment coming from the north - well actually I sent this to myself this winter before the job fiasco lol and was very pleased that I have found new stamps in a tiny post office on the island. Foxes are the cutest, aren't they?! 

New Kitties On The Block

Just as I had to decide to pull a brake on my ever increasing postcrossing activities, I have discovered a new type of postcards while in Zadar, which I thought would normally be a very nice addition to my offers, darn it! As it is not so often that one comes across uniquely illustrated postcards around here. I have sent myself one example, to see how it would fare in transit. It is very sturdy, which makes the postmark even less visible than usual, but on the other hand it is more likely to arrive unharmed. In any case I think the kitties are cute!

Postcrossing Meeting Belgrade

My first, and so far the biggest postcrossing meeting, was all the way back in 2011 in Belgrade - we had the quite active forum group for the ex-yugoslavian countries, and 7 of us  met internationally - well it seemed like a big group at the time! lol. And now I receive this postcard from dear Ana, whom I also met in Belgrade, and am surprised at how many people gathered there..! Of course I am aware some international postcrossing meetings count dozens of postcrossers :) Hvala Anchi!

I Heart Sagittarius

A new addition to my Sagittarius collection - a very interesting take on the subject :D Received for 'Rescue a sinking tag - tag' from the USA, thank you Sarah!

The Wind Of Change (Again)

I was shocked to find out the other day the Croatian Post increased the postage by 50%...I just (barely) came to terms with the last increase of 90% some years ago, and decided it was worth it to venture into 'heftier' postcrossing, i.e. doing more swaps...and I did A LOT in comparison with the previous years..! As I can read in some other comments, a common story for many countries, sadly...This will definitely slow me down and I will have to pull a brake on tags and round robins - but I still have so many postcards to send (darn it, I just kept buying them during this last frenzy episode!) so I'm not planning to go off charts just yet...For the visual part of this post - here is the last larger batch that I've sent off, and the last stamps that I have bought. There were so many other stamps that I was looking forward to buying and combining, but now it becomes impractical because I would need so many of them..!

Just to give you a clearer picture: 2019: 0,60 to 1,14 EUR. 2023: 1,14 to 1,70 EUR. I don't need to tell you that the standard of living barely budged in the same number of years...The minimum net salary at the moment is ca 500 EUR. And how is it going with your Post? 

Vacances à Saint-Tropez

July has knocked on the door and let itself in - the peak tourist season is almost here..! Now wouldn't it be nice to chill in St Tropez, if only for a day...Love the matching theme stamps 💛 Merci beaucoup Laurene!