Cowslip Wine

 See It On A Postcard's Thursday Postcard Hunt is cartoon animals

Time for a picnic where the wasp this time is perfectly welcome and provided with a teeny glass for Mr Bunny's cowslip wine toast. 

Springtime : Illustrator Ammi Krogius

A springtime picnic for the sheep family in a field full of cowslips so why not celebrate the season maxing out on cowslips to both drink and eat. 

Railway Dogs

See It On A Postcard's Thursday Postcard Hunt on the theme of Pets finds me trackside

Waiting on a Friend

on a deserted station but this dog knows a friend is coming down the line

Take Your Dog, unknown artist, 1923-1947

or maybe there will be two friends. 

A postcard of a poster used by the four railway groupings to promote return tickets at the single rate for dogs travelling with their owners

Mail Transport

 

1980: Norwex 80 (Design - F Matheson)

This mini sheet fits the Sunday Stamps theme of 'planes, trains and automobiles' with the added bonus of a paddle-steamer, the 'Bergen'.  All modes of transport carrying mail with the Norwegian stamps of their era.

1949: 7th Anniversary Opening of the Communist PO in Sha Tung

On another continent a post runner goes to meet a train.  An East China stamp, one of liberated areas who issued their own stamps until the formation of the Republic of China replaced all the regional issues.

1979: Europa: Post and Telecommunications

A busy postal hub on the FDC with a 1.70 stamps showing Boule de Moulins which were floating containers used to carry mail during the Siege of Paris.  They were not a success unlike the balloons which were used in the siege which successfully got to their destinations.  The 1.20 stamp shows a monoplane, the Caudron Simoun, used in the 1930s as a mail plane by Air Bleu,  The address of the Bushbury on the FDC has a tenuous aeronautical link for in the 1920s aircraft factories were established in this area.  Who knows Mr Jones might even have worked in one.

2013: Europa - Postman's Van (Design - Alexandra Ubukata)

 Lastly a jolly Polish postman sets off in his van ready to deliver mail

Sunday Stamps theme this week - Trains, planes and automobiles - See It On A Postcard

Sheep Gathering

 The See It on a Postcard Thursday Postcard Hunt this week is a search for Working Animals

"Sheep Gathering in the Skidadalur valley Ljosmyndari"

and here are the  hardy Icelandic horses. Iceland's sheep spend the long summer days in the mountains but come September/October Icelandic farmers head to the mountains to gather the sheep in before the long cold dark winter arrives. The sheep roundup is called the Réttir and starts with search parties riding horses and quad-bikes to locate the roaming sheep.

2016: PHQ Card "40 Year of Aardman Animation"

No horses live at Mossy Bottom Farm but the farmer has his sheep dog Bitzer (who is always seen wearing the blue knitted hat the farmer gave him as a puppy).  Bitzer is never completely in control of Shaun the Sheep or the The Flock but life would be dull without them.

Ships

 

1927-1940: Ship (Design T Jensen Engraver F Britze)

With a fair wind we set sail

1947: Centenary of State Railways (Design F Holm Engraver H Cheffer)

Integrated transport with a rail ferry, I wonder how many of these are left certainly not this one.

1951: The Hospital Ship Jutlandia (Design V Bang Engraver B Jacobsen)

All at sea with the Hospital Ship 'Jutlandia' which was converted for service in the Korean war and served in the area for 3 years.

1941: Vitus Bering (Design V Bang Engraver J Britze)

A taste for adventure? Travel with Vitus Bering although choose your ship wisely if wanting to survive the experience

2016: Shackleton and the Endurance Expedition

 Shackleton and Endurance - one of the great survival stories and regarded as the last of the heroic expeditions of  the polar regions. Stranded in sea ice for 4 months until the ship was crushed they certainly needed endurance to survive the next 6 months but all 28 did

2013: Merchant Navy

And for Remembrance Sunday those who served on the Arctic Convoys in WW2 which sailed between the Arctic ice pack and German bases in Norway bringing supplies to Russia. Attacked by U Boats, aircraft and warships and especially dangerous in winter when the ice came further south. The stamps show - clearing the deck of ice on HMS George V and a Merchant Navy Convoy

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Ships - sail with See It On A Postcard

Sheep Flocks

See It on A Postcard's  Thursday Postcard Hunt theme is "On the Farm"

although these sheep are safely grazing on "Parson's Meadow". The sender of the card (Kate) didn't have enough room on the back for her full message

which was a card swap with her friend with the familiar refrain "I would have sent one sooner but I have been very busy"   The card is from some time between 1907-1917 and here is the card's

destination, the 18th Century Langley Old Hall, all the lawn is missing is a few sheep

but perhaps not as many as this. The flock is by the River Findhorn, Scotland in 1938 and it looks as though the sheep may be deciding whether to follow the post van.

Military Moustache

 Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Moustaches

2010: Battle of Britain Pilots

 

and if one is looking for them then a good place to start is the RAF.  This set of stamps commemorated the pilots who fought a desperate battle over the skies of Britain in 1940 to prevent the German Air-force gaining air superiority over the English channel as a prelude to an invasion.  Churchill famous speech at the time said "never was so much owed by so many to so few" Happily the two pilots - Bob Stanford-Tuck (1916-1987)

and Mike Crossley (1912-1987) lived to tell the tale.

1993: Roman Britain

The Emperor Hadrian never took took the skies but did leave the lasting monument of Hadrians Wall, Rome's northern frontier.  The bronze head was dredged up from the River Thames near London Bridge in 1848 and had been hacked off from the body of a lager than life sized statue. This is one of a handful of bronze portraits of Hadrian to have survived from antiquity. As the British Museum curator commented "Hadrian, apparently aged around 30, is clearly recognisable from his incipient beard, moustache and distinctive physiognomy"

In the Wild

The Thursday Postcard Hunt for 'Animals in the Wild'  finds me

in the snowy north and (as the card says on the back)  in a "winter wonderland".

Meanwhile on a different continent a lone wolf gazes across a snowy landscape