Niue

Another slow day at the office calls for what? A blog update, of course! Well I planned to do it over a week ago, but then somehow the office days werent that slow anymore, so this most important office job had to be postponed. Terrible, I know!

But the time has come... and if you remember, on several occasions previously i had posts dedicated to some of my postcards' fairies so for this time my choice was Chris. And funny thing, it is probably for a reason the previous attempt was postponed, since in the meantime I got this card, which would have been a pity not to be included!
I knew that Chris had paid a visit here, and I was secretly hoping I card was sent my way, and voilà! A new country in my postcards' collection! Directly from Niue!! ❤

What is special about Chris's cards (well most of them)  is that they are unique, since he designs them and prints them himself, so unless he has sent you a card, this is not something you will find at stores :)

Even though the name of the country is something I am familiar with, I actually barely know anything about it.
Niue is one of the world's largest coral islands. The terrain of the island has two noticeable levels. The higher level is made up of a limestone cliff running along the coast, with a plateau in the centre of the island reaching approximately 60 metres high above sea level.
The lower level is a coastal terrace which slopes down and meets the sea in small cliffs

The island is commonly referred to as "The Rock", which comes from the traditional name "Rock of Polynesia.

Niue is a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand; and New Zealand conducts most diplomatic relations—though not all—on its behalf. Niueans are citizens of New Zealand, and Queen Elizabeth II is head of state in her capacity as Queen of New Zealand.

Total number of inhabitants is estimated at around 1600. Probably my neighbourhood has more people than this. It is kinda scary to even imagine, living all your life within these confinements.
(I know there are places with way less inhabitants, and funny thing, I often wish I could get away far from everything and everyone with no people around - but I would endure that better than just being stuck with the same people on such a small space, all the time).

Lovely stamps and very interesting cancellations from Niue's capital, Alofi.

The bottom one, next to the address is from a set of four issued in 2001, represeting the Coconut Crab (it is found on islands across the Indian Ocean, and parts of the Pacific Ocean ).
The others are from a set of 6 Tourism stamps issued in 2009.

Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, England

Next is a lovely train card (which whenever I look at, I think it is somewhere in Germany, dont know why)

Damems on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway is the smallest standard gauge station in the UK.

Locomotive 43924, a '4F Class' from 1920, was the first in the UK to be restored to working order, after rescue from a scrapyard.

Well done! Who would put this into a scrapyard? Tsk tsk tsk!! 

Number of lovely stamps of course, and i just figured out that by trying to remove the address I had also ruined that last stamp but Im not gonna be waiting to go home and rescan it, cos then this update will surely not happen...

Ill start with the non-queen stamp (not sure if Ill pinpoint the right Queen ones).

The top right stamp is from a set of 5 Christmas stamps issued in 1983. It is so lovely and I never would have guessed it is a Christmas one!

The stamp below it was issued one year earlier, and is from a set of four commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Death of Charles Darwin.

That ruined one is also from 1982, from a set of 5 stamps representing British Mariners. This one shows Lord Nelson (and it is 24p, face value).

As for the Queen - I gave up on here... I really cannot distinguish among all those shades of purple and blue and brown... I wish they would start putting the year on the stamps, would make things so easier.

Tristan da Cunha

Now, an update related to Chris, wouldn't be just without a Tristan da Cunha card.

Chris is the first, and for the time being only person who has sent me cards from this most remote island in the world, and thanks to him I actually have several written and stamped postcards from here. He is actually a former Tristan UK Government Representative and our encounter was pretty much accidental, and one of the few reasons why I still believe FB may be useful, despite my overall antagonism towards it. 

On this particular card, you can see:

Top - St. Mary's school with the 1961 volcano in the background

Bottom left - Calshot Harbour

Second from left - The Welcome sign

Third from left - The Settlement "Edinburgh of the Seven Seas."

Bottom right - Administrators House with Tristan Longboats on the left 

Lovely stamps again - unlike me, Chris is one of the people who almost always get some super cool stamps on cards when travelling.
Three of these are from the Early Mail Ships series, for which I have written more here.
The one just above the address is from a set of 4 issued in 2016, commemorating The 200th Anniversary of the British Garrison, while the last stamp, at the very bottom is from a set of 12 issued in 2010, representing nature conversation.
ps. the very left one is not a stamp, just a vignette (I assume...)

Bulgaria

Believe it or not, I still havent visited the Bulgarian coastline, but that's why Chris has, and sent me this postcard along :))

The top picture shows a glimpse of the town of Pomorie, a seaside resort in southeastern Bulgaria on the Black Sea Coast.
The bottom left shows the Eurasian hoopoe bird, while for example the third one, one of the beautiful Bulgarian srain stamps, which Im proud to say, I stocked myself up with during my last trip there just recently. About the efficiency of the Bulgarian mail, in another post :)

Two stamps from the set of four mushrooms issued in 2014.

Santon Station, Isle of Man

Well, one more card in this update since, a post about Chris wouldnt be a post about Chris without an Isle of Man card.

I can say that like 90% of my IoM cards are thanks to Chris. And magically he often manages to find ones with trains too :)


This one shows the Santon railway station which is a request stop near Newtown in the parish of Santon; it forms part of the sole remaining line of the Isle of Man Railway which once encompassed over 46 miles of network and retains its original station building.
The halt sometimes plays host to Santa's Grotto each December as part of the railway's Santa Trains service although between 2010 and 2013 it was not utilised for this purpose.

and look at these stamps!!
Gonna require some work to cover them all but that's the purpose of this blog, isn't it? :)

Starting from top left first is a ship from a set of 6 issued in 1980, commemorating the 150th Anniversary of "Isle of Man Steam Packet Company". Next to it is one from a set of 4 issued in 1974, commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Sir Winston Churchill. The third one in the row is from a set of four issued in 1981 for The Royal British lLegion Diamond Jubilee, 1921-1981.

The bottom row starts with a stamp issued in 1978 in a set of 5 representing buildings and this one shows the Tower of Refuge. Next to it is one from a set of two issued in 1975, under the title New Values and the last one is from 1978 from a set of four stamps commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Royal Air Force.

So, I believe that would be all for today. What a productive day, my oh my :D

A huge huge thank you to Chris for all these cards, and the bunch of others still not uploaded, and a huge thank you also to his wife Julie, who always participates in the sending of cards and signing them as well!

To all who celebrated Easter yesterday, Happy Easter! To all who will celebrate it next weekend, Happy Easter as well!

Till next time...

Sticky Post for a while :)

This is just a short notice to all those who I know might be thrilled to get postcards with the new country name stamps. I realize the interest may be high, but please refer to someone else about this. I have no intention of buying/using these stamps until the other ones become completely obsolete.

And also, please, pretty please, to all your future mail to me, just use the name Macedonia, without that notorious N in front.

Thank you for your attention :)

ps. Scroll down for actual postcards posts :)

Holetown, Barbados

An extremely slow day at work, I mean extremely! So it calls for doing at least something useful now, doesnt it? I mean for sure I'm not gonna do it over the weekend...

And on today's menu we again have a few cards that have arrived during these three months of 2019.

So here we go...


First a card from Glenn, one of the regular readers and contributors to my collection!
Here is a card from his last cruise, from his stop in Barbados.

The card shows us a few images of Holetown, a small town located in the parish of Saint James on the sheltered west coast of the island.
In 1625, Holetown (formerly known as St. James Town) was the site of initial English settlement of Barbados and the Island's oldest church, St. James Parish Church (which i believe is shown on the bottom left image), was erected here in 1628, a year after the first settlers landed.

a nice choice of stamps!
The three ones on the right are from a set of 20 issued in 2016, commemorating Centenarians of Barbados (that is a lot of centenarians!), and here you can see, from left to right, Edith Vimetta St. Clair Wilkinson, Beatrice Gertrude Carrington and Vera Elaine Gibbs. So the reason they have deserved their spot on these stamps is that they have got to live for over one hundred years... which my oh my, sounds kinda scary.. I dont know if I would like to live THAT long :))

The last, fourth stamp, is from a set of four issued in 1982, commemorating the 21st Anniversary of the Birth of Princess of Wales.... or better known as Diana. Here she is shown with Earl Spencer Proceeding up the aisle (if the name doesnt ring a bell, he is actually Diana's younger brother). And dont wanna play a smart ass here, but I actually had no idea either until I googled him :D

Thank you Glenn for the great card and stamps!

Krupa, Slovenia

Next is an official card I received from Slovenia - which is really cool since I dont often receive official cards from Slovenia, making it number 32 on the ranking list of countries on my official site
Number one is of course, Germany :)

SI - 179213

Now this is exactly the kind of place I would like to retreat to right now, away from everything and everyone for a while, just enjoy the nature, the fresh air, the sound of birds, and good books. No phone, no internet, no postcards... nothing... just me, myself and I :)

As for the card, it shows the springs of River Krupa, a 2.5 km river in southeastern Slovenia.
The river is protected as a natural monument and has been included in the Natura 2000 ecological network however, it is infamous because of its extremely high pollution with PCBs due to improper handling of PCB waste material which has been used for decades by the capacitor manufacturing company XYZ - will leave the actual name out, i dont wanna be prosecuted for name shaming cos, nowadays you just cant be sure where a thing you had said on the internet will take you to, haha!

the cute birdy stamp is from a set of 5 fauna stamps issued in 2014, showing a cute small falcon called lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni)

Cyprus

Next is a surprise card from Andy and from his trip to Cyrpus earlier this year.

I dont receive cards from Cyprus that often, and the last one on the blog was published back in 2011, so yeah, a card from Cyrpus does deserve a spot today :)

Unfortunately, I cannot figure out where any of these places are... not that Cyprus is THAT big, but still :P

Funny thing about the postcards mailed from Cyrpus... I read somewhere recently that none of the postcards there have been postmarked, and even though my previous Cyprus cards prove that theory wrong, this card proves it right. So I dont know if it had become a habit in the last few years and in the end it is certainly better than a pen scribble, but still... it is a pity.

The stamp on the right is from a set of 6 Christmas stamps issued in 2017, and I guess the child here is writing to Santa.
The other one is a Cyprus Refugee stamp from 2018 (these have been issued since 1974)

Thank you Andy!!

Taiwan

One more card for today... this time a very cool official card from Taiwan.

TW-2701787

A very interesting way of portraying some of the most famous places and things / foods in Taiwan. How many can you actually recognize?

a stamp from a set of 4 Minerals' stamps issued in 1997. This one shows an enargite.

So folks, that would be all for today! Have a nice weekend ahead and if you had read the sticky post and you are still around, well thank you too :)

Corbière Lighthouse, Jersey

Believe it or not, the cards I shall post here today have been in my draft section since last July... I mean, maybe I could have waited until it reached the one year anniversary after all, as one of my greatest blogging 'achievements'...

How I ended up in that situation I'm not quite sure... but well, as you can see, haven't been the most regular blogger in the first place, so it shouldn't come as a surprise.

But lets cut the rant, now that these cards have finally deserved to see the light of the day... and for today the subject of postcards is Lighthouses! One of my all time favourite topics... and the favourite topic of many people out there :)

First is the Corbière Lighthouse from Jersey, which I ended up receiving twice... once as a swap with Martin and once as a surprise from Janek :)
It is located at the extreme south-western point of Jersey in St. Brélade. The name means "a place where crows gather" even though seagulls have long since displaced the crows from their coastal nesting sites.

The rocks and extreme tidal variation around this stretch of Jersey's coast have been treacherous for navigation and La Corbière has been the scene of many shipwrecks, including that of the mail packet "Express" on 20 September 1859.

As I said, I have received this card twice, and both came with lovely stamps.
The stamp above on the right is from a set of four Christmas stamps issued in 1999 (never would have guessed this was a Christmas stamp unless written on it). The one of the left is from a set of 6 transport stamps issued in 1998, with this one showing the Morris Bus.

Regarding the other two stamps - the one on the left is from a set of 8 Wild Flowers stamps issued in 2005, showing the lesser knapweed (Centaurea nigra). The other one is from 2007 from another set of Wild Flowers stamps, showing the Shrubby St. John's Wort (Hypericum androsaemum).

Kilaeua Lighthouse, USA

Next comes a card from Bryon.

The card shows the Kilaeua Lighthouse, on the northernmost point of the Hawaiian Island, built in 1913.
Interestign fun fact about it is that it can be seen briefly in Disney's animated film Lilo & Stitch, and it plays a more important role in the sequel, Stitch! The Movie. In the film, the lighthouse serves as a rendezvous point where the protagonists are to trade Jumba Jookiba's first 624 experiments (the 625th experiment was taken by Gantu earlier) with the antagonist Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel for Jumba himself. The lighthouse in the franchise was said in the movie to have shut down years ago due to the financial troubles of keeping it running. Towards the end of the film, however, Experiment 221—an electrical experiment that Lilo names "Sparky"— is given the lighthouse as a new home, and he uses his power to make the beacon shine again.

Well, for those of you who have watched it, this may be interesting trivia... i still need to put this on my watching list :)

a number of lovely stamps on the back! Two are from the amazing last year's set of Bioluminescent Life of a total of 10 stamps. The stamp on the left features a firefly, while the one on the right a marine worm. These stamps do not glow in the dark, as some may wonder, but they are highly reflective under white light - something I yet need to test.
The remaining two stamps are quite older - the left one, issued in 1977 shows the Peace Bridge, an international bridge between Canada and the United States - and as the name suggests, it was named to commemorate 100 years of peace between the United States and Canada.
The last stamp is from 1968, simply titled Register and Vote - and I guess it is another self-explanatory stamp as well :)

Tahkuna Lighthouse, Estonia

Another lighthouse from Janek on today's menu.

This is the Tahkuna Lighthouse on the Tahkuna Cape, on the Hiiumaa Island. It was completed in 1875 and is the highest cast-iron tower in Estonia, whose height is 43 m. It has remained unchanged since its construction.

two beautiful lighthouse stamps on the back! The one on the left, showing the Vaindloo Lighthouse was issued in 1996, while the other one, issued in a set of two in 2005 shows the Norrby upper lighthouse (the other stamp in the set shows the Norrby Lower Lighthouse)

Cape Byron Lighthouse, Australia

So, one more card for today, this one from down under, sent by Heather.

This is the Cape Byron Lighthouse veiled in some early morning mist. It is an active lighthouse located at Cape Byron in New South Wales and is Australia's most powerful lighthouse, with a light intensity of 2,200,000 cd. Cape Byron is the easternmost point of the mainland of Australia.

And more lovely stamps with this card as well!! Two adorable WWF stamps from a set of 4 issued in 2011. This set is an Australian Territories Joint issue (so one of the stamps is from the AAT).
The other two stamps are actually issued by the Cocos Island. They are from a set of 20  Marine Life stamps issued in 2011. So beautiful!

So guys, enjoy the weekend ahead! And thank you fro dropping by :)

Baku, Azerbaijan

Welcome February! With postcards mainly from last year.

But there is a card overdue that is about time to show... well, there are thousands of cards that are overdue, however, this is new country we are talking about and previously I would post new countries soon after their arrival... however, it has been several months since this one had arrived and it is about time to pay proper attention to it (and funny thing within a short period of time I actually ended up receiving two cards from Azerbaijan, but one at a time :))

This is one of the countries that I would really love to go to, but the prospects about it right now are rather low, leaning towards non-existent. But oh well, there are other options at hand so it is not that bad after all... but no spoilers right now :)

Anyways, the card shows a really lovely night view of Baku, where you can among else see the Flame Towers which is a trio of skyscrapers, including the tallest in the country, with a height of 182 m.
The towers symbolize the long history of fire worshippers that considered Azerbaijan as a birthplace for the prophet Zoroaster. The buildings consist of 130 residential apartments over 33 floors, a hotel tower that consists of 250 rooms and 61 serviced apartments, and office blocks.
Construction began in 2007, with completion in 2012, with an estimated cost of US$350 million)

The Flame Towers consist of three buildings: South, East and West. The facades of the three Flame Towers function as large display screens with the use of more than 10,000 high-power LED luminaires, as you can see in the video below.

The stamp is from a set of two EUROPA stamps issued in 2006, for the 50th anniversary of the first EUROPA stamp.

Maastricht, The Netherlands

And after ticking another country off the list, back to something else now.

I haven't really considered visiting Maastricht.... but after having received this card, my plans kinda changed.
This is one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world (according to Alvin, and im pretty sure he is right).
Built in 1294, the cathedral features large open spaces boasting three-story bookshelves. Being that the church contains 1,200 square meters of shopping space with only 750 square meters of floor space, the architects decided to design vertically. They incorporate the modern scheme of the shop without obstructing the religious motifs or structure of the ancient venue. Within the space, there is also a cafe. As a nod to the bookstore’s past-life, there is a long table shaped like a cross in the eating area, which is conveniently located where the choir formerly situated themselves.

How can you not want to visit this place? So if you end up in Maastricht and wanna do something that is not really touristy, this is a great way to spend your time. If I end up in Maastricht, this would be my first destination, for sure!

Two nice stamps on the card. Christmas one on the left, from the set of 10 Christmas stamps issued last year. The other stamp is from 2018, showing the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision - Beeld en Geluid.

Las Vegas, USA

Moving a bit over the pond, where some states experienced real polar temperatures resulting in closed schools, offices, airports.

Nevada fortunately didnt make the list, otherwise Im not sure Glenn would have enjoyed that part of his last trip (and Im curious where else he had headed after the Casino adventures :P


Yeah, as he says, more than enough glitter on this card.. speaking of which, recently I was 'lucky' enough to be showered with LOOADS of glitter at a gig I attended. Still I can find specks in my hair :D

And the stamps are very anti-polar too :) Three seashells from the set of 4 issued in 2017.

Copenhagen, Denmark

And one more card for today which I have in my collection thanks to Genek.... and myself.

You may know or you may not know, in September last year I did a one day trip to Copenhagen. The fact that you may not have been informed about it through a postcard, is the ridiculously high postage rate... probably the most expensive one I have experienced so far (even worse than my last trip, whose postcards are on their way :P)

Anyways, it was great to see Copenhagen and even lovelier to meet Genek, even though the weather did play trick on us. However, that didn't ruin our experience of the Danish capital.
And out of the entire city, the colourful Nyhavn probably was my favourite spot!

Nyhavn, ninja style 

Nyhavn is a 17th-century waterfront, canal and entertainment district, stretching from Kongens Nytorv to the harbour front just south of the Royal Playhouse, lined by brightly coloured 17th and early 18th century townhouses and bars, cafes and restaurants. It also harbours many historical wooden ships

It was constructed by King Christian V from 1670 to 1673, dug by Swedish prisoners of war from the Dano-Swedish War 1658–1660. It is a gateway from the sea to the old inner city a King's Square, where ships handled cargo and fishermens' catch. 

It was notorious for beer, sailors, and prostitution. Danish author Hans Christian Andersen lived at Nyhavn for some 18 years.

 The first bridge across Nyhavn, which was a temporary wooden footbridge, opened on 6 February 1875. It was replaced by the current bridge in 1912.

                                                                    And, say cheese! 

A nice rose on the stamp (even though Im not a flower person), from a set of 5 stamps issued in 2018.


So, lets close the post for today. Wishing you all a nice week and a nice February!

Sri Lanka

So after like 3 weeks into the New Year, I thought it was about time to blow off the dust and bring this place back to life after last year's hiatus.

Don't know if that was like my worst year blogging so far, but certainly not the one I would like to brag about. But what's done is done... and who knows, maybe this year will have a better outcome. No promises though, since they never work (there is nothing that works so badly as a New Year's resolution).

And the most proper way to start this year would be of course with cards received in 2019, which may not be much but are just enough for one blog post. :)

 The very first one is this lovely train card that Kiran sent me from his trip in Sri Lanka.
Dont know exactly which line this is, but it says that Taking the train is a great and inexpensive way to get around, the train journeys are real cultural experience and the most scenic routes will be highlights of your visit - in particular the wonderful journey from Colombo to Kandy and up into Tea County, and the coastal train ride from Colombo to Dutch colonial Galle.
British visitors will find the stations, signal boxes and old red semaphore signals very familiar.

Ok, I guess the rest of us will feel completely lost and puzzled then, wondering what kind of objects are those...

Kiran used two lovely stamps to match the card, issued in 2017 as part of the World Post Day.
The actual sheet is really fabulous btw...

Brussels, Belgium

By now some of you probably know already where I had spent my New Year holidays. May seem like an odd choice, but when you find cheap tickets for a place you havent been to before, you just grab the opportunity and make the best out of it, and I must say the trip was really fantastic.

The best thing about Brussels? Our AirBnb, which included 5 cats and one dog. Endless joy! One of the cats would scratch on our door every day to let him in, and he would just climb on the suitcase and fall asleep, waking only to the rustling sounds, knowing it was probably food. (Make a wild guess which one was the frequent visitor :D)

Brussels itself is nice, just too crowded for my taste. But it was nice to see it. It didnt make the list of places I would never really like to go back to again, so thats a plus.

the place shown on the card is called Mont des Arts (meaning Hill/Mount of the Arts) which probably makes it one of the best places for taking pictures, cos the view is really stunning (however when your personal photographer cannot really grasp the idea of a good picture, you will end up without one with you in it...)

Not big fan of spending time in museums, at least not those standard types of Art and History ones, but I do love some unique ones, esp if related to my interests and Brussels has this super cool Comics museum, where if nothing else, you will realize how ignorant you actually were about the comics' art cos it is not all Tin Tin and Smurfs and stuff...

and of course, Belgium wouldnt be Belgium without the waffles, but to my surprise and to the disbelief of many I got to eat only two...but they were real good!

and probably just the best nachos I've ever eaten, so if you are in Brussels, and feel like having nachos, go to the O'Reilly's Irish Pub - their food is just fantastic!

so all in all a great stay in this small county and would like to visit it again and explore more of it (aside from Brussels, we also got to see Brugge, Ghent and Leuven, so not bad, eh? :))

the only downside is the lack of cancellation (or as in case with my card, it was upside down) on just all the cards sent but when I think about it, that is way better than some pen scribbles.

There is one of the birds' definitives (not sure which year it was issued), and two stamps from a set of 10 issued in 2003, under the name This is Belgium. Different places across Belgium are represented, and on these two stamps it is Vilvoorde and Turnhout, where the latter is obviously known for its playing cards industry, hence the playing cards' symbols.