I just love this beauty from Vikki in Australia! This maxicard, celebrates the Australian Antarctic Expedition led by geologist Douglas Mawson which took place between 1911 and 1914 and was the most scientifically rewarding expedition of its time. Charting 2000 miles of coastline, the voyage expanded knowledge of geology, glaciology and terrestrial biology. Amazing! Incidentally, when a centenary scientific voyage retraced Mawson’s steps in 2013, they got stuck!
In my backlog of updates are still quite a few Christmas cards, so I apologise for their unseasonal appearance on here. That being said, some, like these from Silvia in Italy, are really beautiful! These are two maxicards unique to Christmas 2013, one showing a traditional religious motif of Jesus taken from Guido Reni’s San Giuseppe col Bambino and the other created especially for penpals and postcard lovers like us! Wonderful! Thanks Silvia!
This beautiful maxicard comes from Kate in the Ukraine who is clearly very proud of her hometown of Kiev, but wanted to send a maxicard so chose this one of Kherson, in Crimea, where she often goes on vacation which has its origins in Ancient Greece, believe it or not, with the name coming from Chersonesos – an ancient Greek colony, 2500 years ago! The Ukraine really does seem like a beautiful place to visit, and I hope one day I will get the chance!
This cool maxicard comes from Anne in Finland but shows a maxicard from the Azores region of Portugal. The plant it depicts is Platanthera micranta – a type of orchid found in the area. Anne tells me it is an autumnal +5C in Finland but that she is looking forward to the cold, snow and dark of winter. Lovely card!
This fantastic card comes from Jaap in the Netherlands and shows an image of a 1957 Dutch stamp with an original stamp and cancellation on it – fantastic! I feel so privileged to have little bits of history like this in my collection.
My wonderful followers! What a long time it has been! And what a crazily busy summer I had working. I barely had time to even send out any cards, but for some reason they just kept coming in… and in, and in. So now my postcrossing stats are very skewed (many many more received cards than sent ones) and I have a barrage of cards to update my blog with! Not that I’m complaining though! I am a very happy postcrosser!
So to start off the backlog, here is a fantastic maxicard from Yuting in Taiwan showing the aptly named ‘long-eared owl’. Yuting says that they look smart – I agree! And how could someone not love those adorable tufts of feathers? Hmm?!
This beautiful maxicard comes from Hsiang Yi in Taiwan who tells me she is a geography teacher in a high school and that she was thrilled to receive Guernsey as a country to send a card to as it gave her a chance to research it. Lovely card!
This wonderful card comes from Maj in FInland who tells me she bought this awesome maxicard in Estonia recently. She also mentions she has two grandchildren, the youngest only got her name (Venla) last week! Apparently the name is from Finnish literature – adorable! Her grandson is called Lukas, which is a gorgeous name too.
As part of a direct swap with Ray in New Zealand I received the wonderful Bilbo maxicard but also, much to my surprise and happiness, got these two wonderful first day cover envelopes of Gollum and Gandalf. How amazing is that? And Ray kindly says that he just wanted the surprise to bring me joy. Definite success on his part. So kind and lovely! The Hobbit maxicards are some of my favourite postcards in existence, so this haul of mail today was brilliant!
This fantastic card arrived the other day from Neil in Australia. I just LOVE this maxicard! The London Olympics was such a great event so to have a card commemorating it is fantastic. Neil tells me January 26th was Australia Day which is when they celebrate the arrival of the first fleet of convicts and soldiers who started a colony at Sydney Cove. However, what I didn’t know is that the aboriginals call it “Invasion Day” to express their loss under white British rule. Very interesting and a poignant reminder of the suffering that colonisation led to all around the world.
The World On My Doorstep 