Memorialised

 See It On A Postcard's Thursday Postcard Hunt is in search of statues and memorials

Plaza de Espania

and in Spain with their heads in the clouds Don Quixote and the Sancho Panza ride out from the pages of Cervantes,  forever in the search of adventure.

Glentrool Forest Park

The clouds of  an ancient conflict settle over the Bruce Stone in remembrance of Robert the Bruce who defeated English forces in Glen Trool (1307).  A monument to look at and read before starting the popular walk up the boggy narrow valley to ascend The Merrick, southern Scotland's highest peak. A panorama of the Galloway Forest, Ireland and the Isle of Man is promised on reaching the top. It all depends on the weather. Many years ago we viewed and read the granite stone in sunshine however on reaching the top the clouds and mist had descended.

In Sri Lanka the seated Buddha of Gal Vihara teaches the lesson that all is impermanence and transitory. This is one of four images carved on a single large granite rock face in the ancient city of Polonnaruwa.. It is thought that they were once coated in gold.  Time for contemplation over a nice cup of  Ceylon tea.

Aerial Views

2008: Gorgeous Australia

The spectacular Grose River Gorge in the Blue Mountains of Australia, a labyrinths of gorges and and canyons which the Grose River has carved out over the millennia leaving these sheer sandstone cliffs.

2013: National Parks

A different terrain on one of Finland's attractive series of National Parks stamps, in this case a beautiful aerial view of Nuuksion National Park whose green forests and rocky crags are within easy access of those wanting to walk through nature from Helsinki.

1935/6- George V Definitives - Landscapes

I love a port so would enjoy sailing into this one because Colombo is one of the busiest ports in the world.

1963: 40th Anniversary of Sabina Airline

An aerial view requires an aircraft (or a drone) so here is an aeroplane  from what was Belgium's national airline flying over Brussels in a stamp celebrating its 40th anniversary.   Sabena went into liquidation in 2001 so didn't reach its centenary. 

1962|: Space Research (2nd Series)

For an even better aerial view lets take a rocket into space

An entry to Sunday Stamps II theme - Aerial Views - for the overview See It On A Postcard

Sri Lanka

This week I am travelling in my imagination to Sri Lanka. The postcard features some of the fauna of Yala National Park, a wildlife sanctuary in the south east of the country.  One of its strap lines is "Glorious Past and Spectacular Present" for the area was a centre of ancient civilizations, so this combines two things I love, nature and history. It sounds as though Yala National Park has everything, monsoon forests, freshwater and marine wetlands and many other ecosystems. It closes for a few months  during the drought season but last year the rains came early so it reopened early.  It also closes during the mating season of the native Sri Lankan leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya).

Yala National Park is also known for the number of birds  that can be seen in this area of 378 square miles (979 sq kilometres) which totals 215 species.  It is appropriate that the stamps the card came with were two birds endemic to Sri Lanka -

1993: Birds of Sri Lanka

the Ceylon Hill Mynah and the Ceylon Brown Capped Babbler.  Both species are known for their calls.  The Capped Babbler nests on the ground in forest undergrowth and is difficult to see but they are noisy birds so one will definitely hear them.

 Yala is marked on the map by the Sri Lankan elephant on the south east corner. 

Postcards for the Weekend theme - a card from a country you would want to visit - dream of travel at Connections to the World

Nuts and Berries

2014: Winter Poetry

The trees and hedgerows are heavy with autumn fruits at the moment and this FDC celebrates those that will brighten the countryside and feed the birds as winter approaches.  Denmark Post and the designer Martin Mörck have came up with the evocative title of 'Winter Poetry'.

Those colours that will brighten the Danish winter are, an ornamental bush in gardens and a hedgerow plant, the snowberry.  Small pink flowers from July- September turn into berries that are what are described as "mildly poisonous" to humans.  Next are the lingonberry which  mainly grow in North and West Jutland has small flowers in June that develop into berries and ripen in summer remaining until the first winter frost. That is if they haven't been made into jam.  Lastly is the firethorn or pyracantha loved by birds and a step up from 'mildly poisonous' to 'slightly poisonous' to humans although actually it is the seeds that cause the problem.

As you have guessed I am counting berries as fruits and am not sure of the difference but there is no doubt the next stamp contains nuts

1951

in the coconut trees appearing on Ceylon's definitive stamp. 

1954: Definitive

The King Coconut known as Thembili  in Sri Lanka is indigenous to the country and sweeter than the familiar coconut and, as can be seen, is an orange colour.  There are different varieties but it is know by Sri Lankan's  as a "living pharmacy" its water being especially wonderful. Sri Lanka does not export a lot of king coconuts as eighty percent of them are consumed in the country itself.

An entry to Sunday Stamps II theme - Fruit and Nuts - more tasty treats on See It On A Postcard

Just Wondering

Each stamp tells a story of the country, its dominant ideology, culture and national identity but sometimes you get stamps that as this week's Sunday Stamps theme says "leaves you wondering what it is" and what it is saying so lets discover.

I can see it is some sort of needlework but happily this stamp gives lots of other clues, although one at first may wonder where Hrvatska is as most people know it as Croatia.  It also gives its date of issue (2010) so a visit to the Universal Postal Union site says it is a set of 4 Croatian Ethnographic Heritage set but nothing else. Looking for that title to tell me more, zilch,  I do discover on the first search page that there have been new Ethnographic Museums opened in Dubrovnik and Split, appropriate for a country just a independent republic in 1991.  But that still did not help me know what Dubrovacko Primorje was but you always know on the internet there will be an enthusiast on a blog somewhere. I wasn't disappointed because Lina's Land had been taking some embroidery lessons on the stitches of the national costume of this area north west of Dubrovnik and shows some of the beautiful embroidered scarves here.

Well that is one mystery partially solved but there is another that will be for every unknown. The stamp came in a bundle of used stamps on paper from all over the world but this one had been on a postcard, of which now only the small corner with the stamps on remained. Nooooo

 A glimpse of an unknown Croatian town

I recognised the word Orphiuchus on this stamp as years ago I'd read a book called The Ophiuchi Hotline whose title for some unknown reason had stuck in my mind so I knew it was a star system, but what I didn't know was what this stamp was. The stamp of course is a lot smaller than this scan and only when I discovered that the constellation is represented by a man grasping a snake did I go oh yes I see that. Neither did I know it was the 13th sign of the zodiac in an alternative 14th Zodiac system in Astrology. Don't panic if you are born between Nov 29-Dec 17 most still  go for the well known 12.  I discovered however that Sri Lanka  issued 16 constellations in their 2007 definitive set.

Lastly an old stamp I don't have a clue about. An alphabet I am not familiar with but think the stamp is Bulgaria but beyond that, nada. The significance of the date 1915 and 1917 in the banner and in the corners, nope not that either.  I wonder who she is.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamp theme of "stamps that leave you wondering"