Land Of Contrasts, South Africa

I have received this great card at the end of last year, it was like: wait, I don't remember swapping with anyone from South Africa....and then I read the date, March 2016. A nice surprise when you forget about a card and then it suddenly arrives..! A year and a half is a mighty long time. Great stamps too, thank you Santie and George :)

I Love Stamps

Including this one of a Common Cuckoo from Belarus, thanks to Yana :)

Actually I have started collecting stamps way before postcards, not sure about the age but def before my teens. Perhaps because they were more accessible to me...not in the 'right' philatelic way of course (I am still not a proper philatelist, and I suspect I'll never be!) but as my dad was working in Germany we'd sometimes visit, and I was able to buy  unassorted lots - oh the joy of going through it all discovering what I've gotten..! I still have 6-7 stamp albums on my shelf and love going through them from time to time. Of course these days I leave the stamps intact on postcards and covers...but as I was little I used to maul the letters I received, shame...Anyhoo, it's all very well, stuff that brought or bring joy :))

Bergische Kaffeetafel

Bergisches Land is a low mountain range region within the state of North-Rhine Westphalia in Germany, east of Rhine river and south of Ruhr. This coffee table is traditional for the area since the 18th century. Looks yum doesn't it? Rye bread with black corinth raisins, milk rice, honey, butter, quark, waffles, cinnamon, pretzel, zwieback, marmelade, sausages and ham...and and...wow and I thought English breakfast is rich! Thank you Michele :)

Time For Breakfast

A nice continental breakfast coming all the way from Singapore, thank you Kay Jin :)

Åland Pancake

Continuing in the food mode...this is the last postcard I received via private swap, thank you Nina :) This pancake looks like a king of all pancakes! I found a recipe online, courtesy of finland.fi.

Recipe: Åland Pancake This deliciously filling local snack and dessert is popular in homes and cafés throughout the Åland Islands – especially with cycling tourists keen to recharge their calorie count. (Thanks to Pettas Organic Home Bakery for advice on the recipe.) 2 dl (4/5 cup) semolina (some islanders use the same amount of pudding rice instead of semolina) 1 dl (2/5 cup) wheat flour 1 litre (4 1/4 cups) whole milk 2 or 3 eggs 1 tsp salt 1 dl (2/5 cup) sugar 2 tsp cardamom Serves 4 to 6 people Heat the semolina in the milk for a few minutes to a porridge consistency, and let it cool down. Mix eggs, sugar, salt and cardamom separately, then stir this mixture and the flour into the semolina. Pour the mixture into a baking dish greased with butter, and scatter a few small knobs of butter over the top of the pancake. Bake 50 to 60 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius (390 degrees Fahrenheit), until the surface of the pancake is golden brown. Serve hot or cold topped with whipped cream and stewed prunes or jam (popular jams in Åland are made of local apples, strawberries, rhubarb or buckthorn berries).

Official - Olives And Feta Cheese

Today is Easter but I don't have any Easter cards, eggs, chicks or bunnies to show...The next best thing (or actually the best thing haha) is food, as this is also the day when people will (hopefully) feast and enjoy both food and each other's company. 

Olives and cheese are one of my favourite combinations - add some crackers and it is the only meal I need..! Plus some red wine of course :) Thank you Anouk for this card :)

Happy and blessed Easter!

Swans In The Reeds At Dawn

This is an oil painting by Caspar David Friedrich, perhaps the most important German artist of his generation; the year is anything from 1819 to 1932 (different sources different data, even for the title of the painting). You can find it in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and is actually rather small, 33x44 cm.

As I love visiting museums I was surprised on quite a few occassions with the actual size of the paintings, be it awesomely large (Rubens) or small (Mona Lisa). Thank you Gesa for this beautiful atmospheric image :)

Swan From Finland

Swan is Finland's national bird...The stamp is not as graceful though lol. It is an illustration for a car company from 1907, it seems to be a 'modern' take on a Kalevala folk story - the snatching of Kyllikki. Thanks goes to Sari :)