Silvermine, Sweden

I card I received from a swap with Jan...one of the very few swaps I did this year..I actually think I could count them on my both hands =/

The card shows the Silvermine in Sala, Sweden (or the Sala Silvergruva) - it is mainly known for its high silver content though the ore also contained economic amounts of lead and zinc. The mine was in continuous production from the 15th century until 1908, while nowadays it serves as a tourist attraction with guided tours and also as a place for entertainment since concerts are being organized in the big empty rooms. You can actually even stay overnight here, at 155 m. underground :D

(image taken from http://www.yies.com/10-amazing-european-hotels-you-definitely-should-visit/)

stamps....rather old ones....the one on the left was issued in 2003, commemorating the 750th Anniversary of the Birth of St Bridget, while the other one dates back from 1999, commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the European Council.

So, ready for a night out 155 meters underground, away from your mobile phones? =)

Wired Opera House, Brazil

This card arrived very recently as a surprise from Nataša, whose whereabouts are a bit difficult (lets say, impossible) to follow, but she does sometimes give us the chance to at least know on which continent she is by surprising our mailboxes :)

At first glance I never would have guessed that this is an Opera House..neither at second or third..looks really surreal in such a surrounding! It looks more like some botanical garden or so, but NOT, definitely NOT an Opera House!
It is situated in the middle of an urban green park, Parque das Pedreiras and was built in 1992 on the site of a former rock quarry. It got its name because it was built out of steel tubes. The cool architect behind this project is Domingos Bongestabs.

no stamp...spares me the trouble to be searching for it :D

hvala ti puno Nato!! :*

Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica, Viet Nam

One more surprise card...this one coming from Dao from Viet Nam, who I'm really glad had thought of me...been a long while since I've heard from him, so this card was more than a lovely surprise! :)

On the card you can see the Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica (or officially Basilica of Our Lady of The Immaculate Conception - I've never figured out these 'names' I must say).
It was constructed between 1863 and 1880 (established by the French colonists, all the original material has been imported from France) and it is located in downtown Ho-Chi Min, which is just another name for Saigon. The cathedral has two bell towers, reaching a height of 58 meters.

The yellow stamp is one of the two stamps issued in 2014 for the Chinese New Year (Year of the Ram), while the other, bluish one, was issued this year, commemorating the 48th Anniversary of ASEAN - it is a Joint Community Issue.

Thanks a bunch Dao!

M.C.Escher

In the end I'll share with you two more surprises (that's what happens when you dont do swaps or officials), with these two fantastic Escher cards sent by Alvin. I still need to get to that Escher Museum in the Hague though....

The first card shows Escher's woodcut in red, black and grey, called "Horseman" from 1946. This seems to be built on a translation but that is only applicable to the white horses or the brown horses if taken alone, and not to both. Upon closer inspection, the brown horses are actually a mirror reflection of the white horses, and this takes place along a vertical axis. This combines to form a glide reflection
The parade of red and grey horsemen – with the grey horsemen moving to the left and the red horsemen travelling to the right – form a tessellation in the centre of the piece. The grey horseman is depicted against a red background and the red horseman is depicted against a grey background. Or, as Escher puts it in his Phoenix article: “as if it were a woven fabric: the “pattern” in the foreground has the same colour as the “background” on the reverse side, and vice versa. The two form a closed circle.

The second one is a woodcut print called "Other World" (or also, "Another World"), dating back from 1947. It depicts a cubic architectural structure made from brick. The structure is a paradox with an open archway on each of the five visible sides of the cube. The structure wraps around the vertical axis to enclose the viewer's perspective. At the bottom of the image is an archway which we seem to be looking up from the base, and through it we can see space. At the top of that arch is another arch which is level with our perspective, and through it we are looking out over a lunar horizon. At the top of that arch is another arch which covers the top of the image. We are looking down at this arch from above and through it onto the lunar surface. Standing in each archway along the vertical axis is a metal sculpture of a bird with a humanoid face. In each side archway is a horn or cornucopia hanging on chains. It is interesting to note that the views from above and below are consistent, placing the statue so that it faces the horn, however the horizontal view reverses the relative positions of the statue and the horn, and rotates the horn 180 degrees.

My brain is not really wired to understand Escher, but that doesn't prevent me from admiring his work!

And here I would like to mention that thanks to one of the experts I was working with during this project, Ron, a lovely Dutch man (and I'm really gonna miss both him and his wife), I have my Escher calendar for 2016! Yes!! You can't even imagine the thrill I felt when he gave it to me!!

You can see that the Horseman is also featured here for November 2016! =)


Thanks a lot lot lot to Alvin for all the surprises this year, and he never ceases to add something to my Escher collection! And thanks so much to Ron and Agnes for the calendar and for all the great moments in the past two years! I'll really miss you guys!

And to all of you, thanks for dropping by! Until next time...stay warm! Hugs to all!!

Farewell, Kimi dearest (August 2005 - May 25 2015)

Seems that instead of posting stuff regarding what this blog really is intended for, it has turned into a place for commemorating events....sometimes nice ones, and sometimes not really nice ones, like the one this post is about..and from the title, you may guess what it is about....yeah, my adorable furball Kimi, died late last night....even though I saw this one coming, it doesn't hurt any less than when Foxy died...it may hurt even more actually because Kimi's been sick for years, and I can only imagine how many days he had spent in pain...so even though now he is finally relieved, it is us the pain is gonna stay with for losing him...
For his entire life, he has had some kind of problems more or less, but the greatest one, and the one that eventually made him too weak to be able to live, was the so called feline AIDS, or viral stomatitis...or whatever vets call it...however, just as with humans, there was no cure...a fact we had accepted years ago when he was first diagnosed with it..and we all tried to fight with the disease for all these years...but eventually, we couldn't save him, and after being not himself for the past week, last night he just gave up on it all....
He will be terribly, terribly missed...I just can't imagine that he won't be around anymore to jump on my lap, to abuse my laptop when I leave the room, to run after me when he sees food coming...to go out in the street when he hears my footsteps from afar and wait for me...he wasn't the kind of playful cat Foxy was, yet he was Kimi, adorable and gorgeous in his own Kimi way.

After this, I don't think I'd be able to keep another pet....at least not in the near future...not cos of me only, but my parents as well...my dad and Kimi especially had this particular bond, and losing our pets makes him suffer terribly as well...my mum too, even though she always somehow kept her distance....yet, I know she adored them with her whole heart...

I didn't manage to say goodbye to him....even though I knew it yesterday he just won't make it, still my heart somehow hoped for a miracle...unfortunately, the miracle didn't happen...

Thank you Kimi for all these lovely years you gave us with your presence...I'm really sorry we couldn't do more and save you from the pain...I just hope you know we would have done anything for you, literally anything!! Rest in peace my dearest one! ♥♥♥

Happy 7th Postcrossing Anniversary To Me!!

Yes, as the title says, this post is here just to mark this, I must say, amazing milestone for me! When I signed up seven years ago, I had absolutely no idea how things would be, what should I expect, what was I going to get, and I certainly didn't take the chance to take a look 7 years ahead in the future and finding myself still here...and still enjoying it....even though not to the extent I'd love to right now, but I know that whenever I'm ready to embrace it again and again, it would always be waiting for me.

Thank you all for all the lovely postcards and surprises you have ever sent me during this amazing 7-year-long journey! It's been so great to have met you all (I still hope the % of you I have met in real life is going to keep increasing :))
Thank you for all the thoughtfulness, kind words, hilarious words, words of compassion when I needed them...and thank you for being my readers here...hope you will still be around in the next 7 years to come and longer :)

Probably PC won't change to "over 7 years" until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but there you can see, the anniversary date is 27th April indeed...gosh, it is scary to think how quickly these seven years have passed!

I stole this cake from PC's tumblr page :)

http://postcrossing.tumblr.com/

Sorry btw, no new update for now...hopefully I will grab the time for it in the next few days...some great cards are waiting =)  in the meantime, enjoy the beautiful spring outside!

Love to all! ♥ ♥ ♥ 

Ghana

Well well well....look who has decided to wake up from her winter sleep! After more than two months!
Seriously, Ana, what's your excuse this time? Hm?? Cos first hand I know you haven't been that busy, so you better not give us that this time!

Hm, yeah well....honestly, I don't know how time flew so quickly and where did these past two months go. I've been busy, but not to such an extent as to not be able to write anything here. I've had busier periods and still somehow managed to battle on all fronts...but this time I guess it would be just lack of inspiration and the overall winter kind of depression...I don't know..but lately I've often found myself unwilling to do anything, sometimes even didn't feel like getting out of bed...but like with anything else, a time comes when one needs to draw the line, so I guess I'll be drawing mine here when it comes to the overall silence this time...

And for that occasion I have this great card that's actually marking a new w/s country in my collection :D
I do have one blank card from Ghana, posted long long time ago....so it was about time to shift the status from blank to w/s =)

I received this plus another one (yep, I got two w/s cards from Ghana now :D) from a very kind person called Hardy to whom I owe a million of thank yous for enriching my collection with such a card!
The card actually should represent the flag of Ghana, just that instead of the black star in the middle, here is a picture of Kwame Nkrumah who was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1951 to 1966. He became the first Prime Minister of the Gold Coast in 1951, and led it to independence as Ghana in 1957, becoming the new country's first Prime Minister. After Ghana became a republic in 1960, Nkrumah became President. An influential 20th-century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organisation of African Unity and was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963. He saw himself as an African Lenin.
It is said that the statement he had made was true and relevant at the time it was made and is even more relevant in modern times albeit in a different context. Nkrumah took steps to ensure that the foregoing statement became a reality. Although some of the steps he took towards achieving a united Africa were criticised, the man went to the extent of getting married to a non Ghanaian to demonstrate his commitment to this cause.

Hardy paraphrased this, saying that "The independence of a person is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of the rest of the humanity"

There is some food for thought and it's up to you to agree or disagree with it.

I like it that the stamp bears not just the same colours as the card, but also the image of Kwame Nkrumah (just a pity the cancellation is somewhat smudged).
Issued to commemorate the centenary of his birth (1909-2009)

Curonian Spit, Lithuania

I posted about the Lithuanian part of the Curonian Spit once...but that was long long ago, so here is a small reminder...plus the cards are really beautiful, it is a shame to leave them at the bottom of some box or drawer.

LT-341010

First one is an official received in 2013, showing the Great Dune. Nida is located on the Curonian Spit between the Curonian Lagoon and the Baltic Sea, and is the westernmost point of Lithuania and the Baltic states 

the stamp is from a set of two Lithuanian Red Book stamps issued in 2013, showing birds. On this one you can see the Tawny Pipit.

I received this second card also in 2013 as part of the Choose a Country RR. This reminds me that I haven't taken part in a RR in ages and it seems it's gonna stay that way for a while =/ Mainly cos of financial reasons, plus my general procrastinating habit, so I believe it aint fair to be engaging in activities that I cannot respond to properly.
Anyways...the card shows the Grabštas cape, that's also part of the Curonian Spit.

the stamp is from a set of two issued in 2009, portraying the Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers subject.

Dublin, Ireland

Moving on to some Dublin stuff..

This first card came from Andy not so long ago from his trip to Dublin last December. Lucky, lucky guy! :)

The back of the card says" Dublin city is spread over the broad valley of the river Liffey, with Wicklow Hills sheltering it on the south. In addition to its splendid public buildings, Dublin is particularly rich in domestic architecture of the 18th century. It's one of Europe's most beautifully situated capitals with pleasant beaches and mountains only a short journey away.    

this stamp was issued in 2014 as part of two Marine Life stamps and on this one you can see the Fireworks Anemone...

the second Dublin card arrived as a surprise from Lynda...a great view of the city..and here you can see the Liffey river as well as some (important) buildings, that I  have no idea if I can identify properly...I guess the first bridge you can see is the Ha'Penny Bridge, built in 1816...and in the back on the right, that might be the Four Courts...well other than that I really dont know...that's why I included that last map card you can see below

again the fireworks anemone stamp....

and here is the Dublin map card, to help out lost and totally confused tourists like me with no sense of orientation. The back of the card has names for each of the numbers shown here, so with this, I really shouldnt get lost...all it takes now is to figure out how to get to Ireland...

nice colourful stamp from 2012 from a set of four stamps showing Myths and Legends....Id be thankful if anyone could tell me what the myth on this stamp is all about....

Passau, Germany

My last post for today (yeah, sorry, but that would be it) shows two cards from the beautiful Passau in Germany...and both cards were received thanks to Martina!

First you have a gorgeous aerial view of the city of the three rivers because the Danube is joined at Passau by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north. Out of the 50,000 people who live here, around 11,000 are students so it must be all lively and nosy and cheerful to be around here :)

a nice German stamp issued this year, showing a view of the Baltic Sea and its Bodensee (or as they call it in English, Lake Constance).

On the second card you can see St Stephen's Cathedral, a baroque church dating back to 1688, that over time time has acquired the largest cathedral organ in the world (it has has 17,774 pipes and 233 registers).

I guess I should put it on my list of places to visit one day....

issued in 2013, commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Fehmarnsund Bridge.

So the time has come to part again...till next time....which I don't know when it's gonna be but for some reason I think I won't be able to post anything before Easter (Orthodox Easter), though I wish I could prove myself wrong.

Either way, stay well, and hope you are still taking a peek from time to time :)

Wishing you all a great week ahead and hopefully, nice spring days!

Nevis

It's a gloomy, rainy Monday...although it didn't really start this way, it turned into quite a sh***y day...so I could use it as an excuse why I've spent my entire day in the pajamas, like literally doing nothing....so to make at least something productive out of today (I know we can debate on the word "productive" here :P), here comes an update...to make at least two throughout January...but let's see how much I manage to do in the end coz I really feel lazy on the overall =)

So I think that by now most of you are familiar with my 'I have new countries! I have new countries' bragging...so here comes one of those from that famous list...directly from Nevis!! Oh yeah baby, Nevis! :D
May sound confusing to some of you (as it did to me at the beginning, I admit), cos usually to me it is St.Kitts and Nevis as a whole, but Nevis does have its own stamps indeed...so the fact that I had received a card from St. Kitts, didn't actually mean I had one from Nevis too (well, until this beauty dropped into my mailbox!). So I guess I should go and change that label, cos it seems to be misleading...

Wanna take a guess which of my postcard fairies is guilty for this one? :P I have like 6 or 7 of them
 at the moment and the lucky one to have visited Nevis is dear Herbert!  Whom I actually had the chance to meet last year cos he also took a small trip around the Balkans which included Skopje as well...but I won't be speaking on his behalf regarding his impressions, I'll let him do so...actually just right now this idea crossed my mind of people who have visited Macedonia and whom I've actually met, write some kind of guest post with their impressions and all...hmm, what do you think? I really don't know why I haven't thought of this before, but now that it simply flashed in front of my eyes, I really love the idea!! What do you think? Instead of me rambling about it, someone else can give a different insight (ok, I can pop in with Macedonian posts as well from time to time regarding the places I've been too and share some anecdotes), but my heart really goes with the idea about guest posts. And in case you read this and plan on visiting Skopje as well, leave a note so we can meet, have some coffee and later have your post up here...yeah, the only "condition" for you to be eligible to write a guest post is that we have actually met....so you can later write in your post "oh Ana is sooo awesome and fantastic and such lovely company and so on and on :D :D :D :D"

But back to Nevis for now...or the Queen of the Caribbean as they call it - which it earned in the 18th century, when its sugar plantations created much wealth for the British, (or the little stamp paradise, as Herbert called it), is separated from St.Kitts by a shallow 3.22 km channel known as "The Narrows".
The name, Nevis, is derived from the Spanish, Nuestra Señora de las Nieves (which means Our Lady of the Snows); the name first appears on maps in the 16th century

and yeah...Nevis is one of those countries with absolutely cool stamps that have nothing to do with the country itself...and it was quite shocking to see the overall number of Elivis stamps Nevis has issued....this one is from 2007 from a set of 6 stamps, commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Death of Elvis Presley (1935-1977).

Muchas gracias a Herbert for always finding a new country to visit and surprise my mailbox along the way too ;-)

Bjelovar, Croatia

a lovely surprise card I received from Hrvoje and Ekaterina!

I have the impression that when it comes to Croatia, I'm more inclined to post something related to the coastline places or islands, and unintentionally ignoring the rest, which is neither fair neither I have some reason for it...so to make up for it, here is a card from the Croatian town of Bjelovar where you can see some images from a festival called Terezijana, organized each June in the memory of Maria Theresa (not Mother Theresa) who was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg and had been the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma.
She is said to have laid the foundations of the town of Bjelovar in 1756, thus this festival is being organized each year.

the two stamps are from set of four Ehtnographic heritage stamps  issued in 2010, where the regions of Primorje and Međumirje are represented.

thanks a lot to Hrvoje and Ekaterina for thinking of me and sending me this card :)

Casa de la Vall, Andorra

next is another surprise card sent by my friend Goran who, well, decided to make us all jealous and during his trip to Spain last summer, take a short tour to Andorra as well :)

May seem just like some another ordinary house/building, but turns out that this Casa de la Vall is an important place in Andorra, where the headquarters of the General Council of Andorra are
It was built in 1580 as a manor and tower defense by the Busquets family.

Goran used a a EUROPA stamp from the 2014 theme of instruments.

Фалааа Гораааан! :)

Cape Eluanbi, Taiwan

Two cards from Taiwan, which, if I figured out correctly, show the same lighthouse...I'm saying this, cos the second card doesn't bear a name of the lighthouse, but according to the structure and layout and all, it must be the same one :)

TW-1368092

The first one arrived as an official and is really cool cos that small square in the right up corner is actually a small window, which turned out to be showing the image perfectly when scanned! 

The Cape Eluanbi lies at the it is the southernmost point of mainland Taiwan and nowadays it is called "The Light of East Asia", because its intensity is the most powerful among Taiwan lighthouses.

Btw, I realized that this is some kind of series of Taiwanese postcards called "Love Taiwan" and that Glenn has received a fantastic one representing the Alishan Railway! 

the stamp on this one is from a set of four stamps showing lakes, issued in 2014.



The other lighthouse card arrived for the FB surprise group from Elva. Btw, I was somewhat convinced I had another card showing this lighthouse...but then again it might be I've seen it too frequently on postcrossing...but frankly, I really have NO idea and I feel like my mind is playing tricks on me =/

The lighthouse was built during the Qing Dynasty in 1888 and according to Wikipedia, is the only armed lighthouse in the world, with a trench surrounding it and many gun holes on the wall. The extra fortifications were required at the time it was built because of frequent raids by local aboriginal tribes

the stamps are definitives issued in 2013, representing different kind of berries - the one on the left (in two copies), shows us a Ribes formosanum, while the other one shows a Hylocereus undatus (or White-fleshed Pitahaya)

Berat, Albania

well, lets put one more card for today...from the neighbouring Albania

Funny thing I learned about the name of this town is that it was derived from the older Bel(i)grad (or Belgrade, if it feels more familiar to you, which means "white city" in the South Slavic languages), under which name it was known in Greek, Latin and Slavic documents during the High and Late Middle Age.

The old town of Berat has been inscribed on the UNESCO whs list (along with the Albanian town of Gjirokastra), since they bear outstanding testimony to the diversity of urban societies in the Balkans, and to longstanding ways of life which have today almost vanished.

the stamp is from a set of two issued in 2013, commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the International Red Cross

one weird thing, if I may call it so, is the airmail label...I mean, why???! :D

well, one more thing to add...Dritan, the guy who sent me the card, seems to appreciate the Macedonian music, from what can be seen on the card as well..he likes Toše...and he also likes Leb i Sol...another great Macedonian band that I recommend you give it a try...

well, so much of cards and stamps and recommendations for now...wishing you a great week ahead and see you around :)

British Antarctic Territory

Happy New Year people!! OK, I know it's been five days already since it passed, but being that it is my first post this year, I do want to use this opportunity to wish you all a superb 2015, being happy and cheerful, doing the things you like, spending time with the people you love, travelling as much as you can and of course, enjoy full mailboxes as often as possible :)

2015 started pretty fine for me...esp. postcard-wise...this post is a proof of it ;-)
Even though my initial plans for New Year's eve didn't really get to be realized, my last minute option turned out to be a really good choice and it was just great...esp. when you get to bribe the DJ with chocolate to play Depeche Mode for the second time :P

Anyways, the downside of all this is that I've been ill ever since...I saw it coming even before NY, but I guess it didn't want to ruin my NY plans more than it already did, so it waited till it was all over to knock me down to bed...and it's been driving me crazy, being stuck inside and lying in bed most of the time...the worst thing is that I don't feel I'm gonna recover for at least a few more days, and I really better be cos in like ten days I'm going back to my working tasks and I can't possibly be doing my job in such a condition =/
Well, at least it is a good opportunity while doing nothing productive, to squeeze in one or two updates before things get hectic again and I neglect this nice, little cosy place of mine.

Now, is there a better way to start the year than with a new country? I know I told you already that a few new countries have been waiting in line to be posted, but JP ruined my plans (gees, seems like a lot of my plans have been ruined lately, but probably for a good reason :D)
So I'm really sorry that I'll keep you in dark for a while more about those special places, but today the special first post in 2015 goes to this written and stamped card from the...well, you've already read it in the title above so it's no longer that much of a surprise, but yep, it is indeed a w/s card from the British Antarctica! :D  I just don't know if im more excited to have received this card or envious of JP for having been there :)

The card shows a wreck of an old whaler ship, while in the background you can see the Deception Island, which is part of the South Shetland Islands, which have been claimed by the United Kingdom since 1908 and to be part of the British Antarctic Territory since 1962. They are also claimed by the governments of Chile (since 1940, as part of the Antártica Chilena province) and by Argentina (since 1943, as part of Argentine Antarctica, Tierra del Fuego Province).

Awesome cancellation of Port Lockroy, which is a natural harbour on the north-western shore of Wiencke Island in Palmer Archipelago of the British Antarctic Territory.
As for the stamps....there are two and both were issued in 2013. The one with the penguin is from a set of 8, penguin stamps, of course, and this little fella here is an Adélie penguin. The other stamp is from a set of 16 stamps commemorating the 50th Anniversary of British Antarctic Territory Stamps - Antarctic Research. No, that's not the Queen there lurking...or is it?!!

Thanks sooo much JP for the fantastic surprise...and for the perfect timing, starting the new year with a brand new country!! Thank you!!! Ana happy!!

Lake Michigan, USA

Well, next comes another surprise card that I received this year...and since I don't feel like opening yet another box to be storing my 2015 cards, why not clear them away immediately? :P
Thing is, if it wasn't for this card, I wouldn't have realized that my Illinois posts so far were actually labeled as IlliOnois...even in the title! Yeah, me, who can be a real nit-picker sometimes, makes such clumsy mistakes...that laaast and laaast and laaast..for years! Just terrible...but I guess either no one has noticed so far, so it is not THAT embarrassing, or people didn't feel comfortable of pointing it out :)

The guilty guy for making me notice this mistake of mine, is, well, of course...Bryon! :D
Well, you know, I realized that both of the card I received since the beginning of the year are somewhat related, since they both show some icy, cold place...and eventually, really spontaneously, this whole updated turned out to be veiled in ice and snow...just as our weather here...snow, ice and extremely cold temperatures, which were like the main reason why my initial NY plans didn't work out...but as they say, everything happens for a reason and Im not complaining :)

The card here shows a view of the Chicago skyline from the frozen Lake Michigan...doesn't seem suitable for ice-skating though

if im not mistaken, this is my first Christmas USPS stamp of 2014...and I really love it!

Thank you Bryon! Hope that Argentine wine was nice ;-)

Helsinki, Finland

a dreamy kind of an image..at least for me...

I received this card back in 2012 from Minna as RAS. This is how the main railway station in Helsinki looks like during the snowy winter days...I don't know if it is always so deserted and empty, but sure feels tranquil and if it wasn't (probably) freezing cold, it would be really nice to sit here for hours and find your peace of mind.....

a very, very cute Christmas stamp issued in 1996 in a set of 3 stamps. Love those auroras!!

Winter in Yukon, Canada

well, just one more icy, freezing post for today...which, hmm, also happened to arrive as a surprise (i just realized this honestly...a definitely themed update today :))

I hope my bicycle doesn't get to experience this though :)

The back of the card says: At -40 °C summer seems a long way off...well, even here, even though it is not as extremely cold as -40, summer does seem a long way off..
Alvin is to blame for this lovely card, who visited Canada last September

the stamp is from a set of 5 Baby Wildlife stamps issued in 2014...really cute!

Thanks Alvin for yet another lovely surprise...and thank you all for dropping by!

Until next time, stay well!