Sir Rowland Hill

Sir Rowland Hill was an English teacher, inventor and postal reformer. He came up with the solution of prepayment, facilitating the safe, speedy and relatively cheap transfer of letters. He is usually credited with originating the basic concepts of the modern postal service, including the invention of the postage stamps.

(Stamp sent by John - the UK)

Not Even a Letter

I smiled when I read that on an envelope that arrived from the Netherlands. I guess it was written because of the postal workers who are being a bit fussy about customs regulations. But I can imagine their faces like "Why on hell somebody is spending money in sending... cardboard?".

Little Mail Carrier

Letter sent to my nieces (PC).

I know the postwoman who delivers letters in their town is not very nice. I hope that at least she smiled when saw this letter drawn with love...

(I added this post to Paper Saturdays).

Go to the Nature!

Sent to Richard (France).

The monthly link-up of uncustomary is about Nature. There is some ways you can reach the nature. You can take advantage of every little chance to enjoy nature. I hope Little Red Riding Hood did so and had fun in woods and she arrived safe and sound to Richard's place...

Inspiration from Em's Den.

Horses on Stamps

I have recently received more horses that update this post:

From Canada

(Maybe you cannot appreciate it in this picture, but it is golden.)

From France

From Guernsey

From the UK

I am really happy to have received four of six stamps of the new series Working Horses issued on 4th February by Royal Mail, on different letters sent by different people:

From the USA

Can you see the gold horse in the left top corner?

Merci aux postiers

Envelope sent by Eric (France).

With a nice message on the back: Merci aux postiers (='Thanks to the post workers'):

ATC Moon

ATC (Artist Trading Card) sent to Eric (France) for his project One word... one ATC. I chose the word قمر (Arabic for 'moon'). I wrote a lullaby in Catalan about the moon on the back.

Eric sent me back his own illustration for the same word (lune, French for 'moon'). He also quoted an old French song:

Also published in Eric's blog for the project.

Sant Marcús

This stamp dates from 1975 and represents the Chapel of Mare de Deú de la Guia ('Our Lady of the Guide'), aka Chapel of Sant Marcús because it was built thanks to Bernat Marcús, a rich bourgeois from the city of Barcelona. He donated the land for the chapel and a cemetery for poor people in 1166. The chapel was finished in 1188.

The chapel was placed next to the strata franca, one of the main roads of the city leading to the North. It became the headquarters of the Confraria de Correus i Troters ('Brotherhood Mailmen'). It meant the birth of the oldest private postal service in Europe (outside the royal courts), with standardized rates and routes.

Under the porch of the chapel, the mail carriers were blessed before leave home.

(More pictures, better than the ones taken by me. It was too dark!)

Where's the Envelope?

Wonderful envelope sent by Tessa (the Netherlands). She runs an interesting blog about mail: You Have Mail From Me. 

The content of the envelope wasn't less wonderful!

Who Can Write a Long Letter...

«"But do you always write such charming long letters to her, Mr Darcy?"
"They are generally long; but whether always charming it is not for me to determine."
"It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter, with ease, cannot write ill."»

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, I, 10

Label from Spain

This is the first time in my life I have received one of this labels from Spain. I mean... Spain is supposed to be my country, but of course, I didn't received them while I was living there.

Anyway, most postworkers are reluctant to give these labels, I don't know why. So I scarcely used them when I sent my mail from Spain, and I have almost forgotten their design.

Die Schlümpfe

Handmade postcard sent by Micu (Hungary). I wonder what is he saying...

Postal Reading Challenge

The Postal Reading Challenge 2014 is hosted by The Indextrious Reader's blog.

It consists in read and review books with a postal theme (non-fiction on the subject of letter writing, collections of real letters, or epistolary fiction of any era). You review each one and link back to the challenge. You can sign up any time throughout 2104.
More details here and here the links related to the project.

Even if you don't sign up, you can discover a lot of interesting books!

Love Letters Building

Love Letters Building is a project created in 2001 by the German artist HA Schult in Berlin-Mitte by covering the old Berlin Postfuhramt ('post office') with hundreds of thousands of love letters.

Pictures of Children on Stamps

The theme for this week in Viridian's Postcard Blog Sunday Stamps is Of children and for children. I want to show you stamps with real children on, not drawings. It happens that all of them arrived from the Netherlands!

Children's toys, Issued on 6th November 1991.  I like specially stamps with children playing like these:

And in the following one from 2009... Well, I'm sure there is a child somewhere!

More pictures of children on stamps:

Issued on 9th Nov 2010. See the complete series.

One of the stamps issued to commemorate de 65-years-old of UNICEF. You can see here the whole sheet here, and an interesting analysis about contrast between the stamp issued in 1996 and these issued three years ago.

This belongs to 2013 Children's Welfare Stamps issued by PostNL. This series of pictures taken in Ethiopia highlight the contrast between children who attend school and children who have to work (see the whole sheetlet: each of the three children is photographed both at school and at work).