Snake and Ladder

It is not that usual that I see the postcard I get before the trip started!

The Blasket Islands from Dunquin Pier,
Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry

This postcard was sent by @imreddave, and it belongs to the series of Easy Games. Or super easy games!

So Delicious Mail!

Letter in a hand-painted envelope sent by Wanda (Ireland).

Donore Handle

The stamp belongs to the series A History of Ireland in 10 Objects. I had got more of those:

St Patricks Confessio

Loughnashade Trumpet

Leac Na Riogh

It Is Impossible to Get Mail from Guatemala

Girl form Tecpàn

Claire went to Guatemala and bought these colourful postcards. She wrote them, went to the post office... just to be told that there was no mail service in the Guatemala. (But they keep selling postcards -?!)

She sent me the postcards after her trip, from the United States, along with an article which explained (sort of) that the mail service was suspended in 2016 and

[...] it’s still non-existent, making Guatemala the only country in Central or South American without a postal service, and one of the only countries in the world to be without (although some countries have suspended international deliveries and others are massively inefficient).

Antigua

Now I wonder which other countries in the world (if any) have no mail service... Have you any information about?

[I have seen Postcrossing postcards sent from Guatemala last month, like this one. How...?!?]

Women on Stamps | W for Wharton

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, and designer. Her novel The Age of Innocence (1920) won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature, making Wharton the first woman to win the award.

She was honoured on this stamp in 1980.

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For the current round of Sunday Stamps A-Z I am showing stamps dedicated to women. You can see here all the Women on Stamps featured on this blog.

Go to Sunday Stamps to enjoy more W-stamps.

Réunion

Le flamboyant (Delonix regia)
Le souffler de Saint-Leu

Another new place to receive a postcard from! It was sent by Alexandra, as a thank you card after I sent her a Postcrossing one. It just made my day, for several reasons.

Cookery Postcards

The Culinary Institute of America

(California Campus) 

Both postcards sent by Bryon (the USA). Don't you find very curious the second one? I am not sure I have tasted any of those salads...

French Salads Named After French Women 

By Naz Şahin Özcan, 2015

Postcard received from Helen (Russia), through the Postcrossing site. I was surprised it was written in Spanish! I am posting also the back because of the nice postmark and the also delicious stamp featuring a pineapple.

As you can see, it includes the recipe of the pancake... in Russian, of course.

Two more Postcrossing postcards:

Taiwanese Food

Singapore Chilli Crab

Postcard sent by Claire (the USA). An illustration from the children's book A Trip to Delicious, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Hayelin Choi.


The following postcard sent by Laura shows a book cover: Good Dishes from Tinned Food, by Ambrose Heath, 1943:

Also sent by Laura: If I can include here tinned food... why not ham sandwiches?

HitM | Log Cabin

I am still amazed about the variety of houses that arrives fro the Houses in the Mail project! From Lilli (Canada) I got one I had not thought of: a log cabin. 

I like a lot Lilli's use of the stamps. I'd hope the fireplace in my cabin wouldn't produce so much smoke, though!

But it would be nice if, like on the envelope, the cabin was near a World Heritage site like L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site (Dating to around the year 1000, it is the only confirmed Norse or Viking site in North America outside of the settlements found in Greenland).

And, of course, I would be honoured if my mail was delivered by Albert Jackson! He is thought to have been the first Black letter carrier in Canada. (Read more about this stamp.)

I know living in a log cabin isn't for everyone. But, just in case I (or you) would give it a try, the sender included a postcard that shows how to build one...

Queen Victoria Bicentenary

Maybe you noticed the nice stamps on this letter...

Queen Victoria in her latter years

It belongs to a set of six stamps, issued by Royal Mail on the bicentenary of  Queen Victoria's birth. They chart Queen Victoria’s life – from Princess to Empress.

Before I had seen them on the Internet, I received four of them... the same day!

Queen Victoria as a young girl
with her terrier, Fanny (1830)

Queen Victoria on horseback, with servant John Brown (1876)

Queen Victoria wearing the Robes of State (1859)

The Marriage of Victoria and Albert

Powers and Privileges

Taken from here

Which privilege would you choose from this list? ;)

Par Pigeon

Don't you love when a hand-painted pigeon gently bring you a letter?

Painted and sent by Alan (the UK).

Women on Stamps | V for Valland

Rose Valland (1898-1980) was a French art historian, member of the French Resistance, and captain in the French military. She succeeded in establishing, in perilous conditions, details of the Nazi plundering of National French and private Jewish-owned art from France; this allowed to retrace and retrieve more than 60,000 artistic objects.

On this stamp issued last year, Rose Valland is represented next to a work by the Argentinean sculptor José Fioravanti exhibited in the Jeu de Paume museum,where she worked. The Rose Valland was  created in 2003 by the rose garden Guillaut de Chamagnieu, to honour her. 

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For the current round of Sunday Stamps A-Z I am showing stamps dedicated to women. You can see here all the Women on Stamps featured on this blog.

Go to Sunday Stamps to enjoy more V-stamps.

Happiness Is Reading in the Sun

Front and back of an envelope sent to John (the UK) made out of a catalogue of clothes.

Happiness is reading in the sun,
with no homework to get done.

Markets

Postcard featuring the impressive building of the Markthal in Rotterdam (the Netherlands), sent by Heleen.

The postcard was written on 22 April 2019. Coincidentally, the stamps stuck on the back were issued the same day six years before.

A market in Canterbury (the UK). Hand-made postcard sent by Laura.

A traditional shop in Palma, sent by Lluïsa.

Føroyar

Receiving a postcards from a new place is always a pleasure. But even more if it is from a dream place, plus the postcard features a lighthouse, and so does the stamp.

Anna sent this postcard from the Faroe Islands. The pictures shows the 1 km long islet Mykineshólmur, at the western end of the island of Mykines. A lighthouse was built there in 1909.

On the stamps:

- An old fire trucks (22 February 2016)

- Akraberg lighthouse, on the southern tip of Suðuroy (28 April 2014)

- The island of Skúvoy (18 September 2000)

Postcards from Spain

From the Segovia Province and Eivissa island, sent by Bruno.


The following one was sent from the UK by Laura:

Burgos Cathedral Under Snow, 1910
Joaquín Sorolla

Letters from Reality

«Out of sight, out of mind. It can even get to the point where for long periods I won't open letters I receive for fear they might be unpleasant, since what other letters are there but letters from reality?»

Karl Ove Knausgård, My Struggle, 6: The End

Wonderland Everywhere

Wonderful envelope made by Claire (the USA), out of an invitation (?).

Jabberwocky,  is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named the Jabberwock. It was included in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Postcard sent by John (the UK).

"The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo...". 

Illustration by Sir John Tenniel, coloured by Dix Wallis. Postcard sent by Bryon (the USA).