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

Cinema

 

2008: Ingmar Bergman (Design Gustav Martenson; Engraving Martin Morck)

A photo of the filming of 'Fanny and Alexander' directed by Ingmar Bergman which often features in 'Greatest Films of All Time' listings.  I have never seen the film but did watch the mini-series which was eventually turned into a very long film.  One of the things I remember about it is colour, but I do like film black and white stills

2008: Ingmar Bergman (Design Gustav Mårtensson; Engraving Lars Sjööblom)

Bergman died on the small island of Fårö where many of his 60 films were made, he wrote the scrip for 'Fanny and Alexander' there but filming took place on location in Uppsala.  At the time he intended it to be his last film and indeed was a massive undertaking which he thought he would not have the energy (mentally or physically) to do again.

1996: Century of Cinema

I can remember the first film I saw as a child and happily that cinema is still going strong as indeed is this  - the Odeon in Harrogate built in 1936. Architecturally it is in  'Streamline Moderne' style. The Odeon group were known for all their buildings being different, not all of them survive.  The film still is from 'Lady Hamilton' also known as 'That Hamilton Woman' released in 1941 starring Laurence Olivier as Admiral Nelson and Vivien Leigh as Emma Hamilton. Directed by Alexander Korda with his brother Vincent as Art Director

1999: Millennium - The Entertainers' Tale (Illustrator: Ralph Steadman)

 

Lastly we go back to the early days of cinema with Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), one could almost start a mini-collection from the number of countries who have issued Charlie Chaplin stamps over the years.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Black and White - at See It On A Postcard

 

Breaking the Ice

Time for a Thursday's Postcard Hunt and as summer time comes to an end on Sunday we know that winter approaches. At Christmas and New Year people around the UK will be running into the sea to celebrate the season with a swim.

In Finland they take it much more seriously and fully embrace the winter, break the ice and take to the water throughout the season. It is popular to take a sauna and then a dip. I do like the ladder that leads one in and can imagine tentatively taking it one step at a time and once immersed

it would be good to have a friend to bring a hot drink.  I say winter but Eeva wrote on the back of this Inge Löök card "This is how it was in May" 2017 in Finland😱