COVER N.110 - CZECH REPUBLIC

Postmark: 73984 PISEK 02-05-22
Posted on the 2nd May; received on the 9th May 2022
__________________________________________________________________________________

One of the film scenes I will never forget is poor old Brian on the cross while the rest of the crucified guys sing  "Always look on the bright side of life".

This is the sort of advice that I really think one should adhere to, even if I understand that life itself can sometimes fully hide its bright side from the most argute view.

All this a propos the cover I received today from someone whom I don't know, but who was immensely kind and whom I truly thank for all the kind collaboration. The story goes like this: my wife was in the Czech Republic with some of her little students in an Erasmus visit and I, of course, would not let her go away without giving her a fully addressed envelope and a plea to go to the post office and get it delivered with a nice stamp back to me.

It so happens that she had a very busy programme and could not do it herself, but she relied on the very kind assistance of one of her colleagues to post the letter, after her departure from the Czech Republic.

This is the letter that was posted with a very nice Tariff E (Europe Priority up to 50g) stamp, issued on 09SEP2020 along with another stamp of the same tariff, as part of a multi issue series dedicated to birds that had 2 stamps issued on 11MAR, plus two other on 17JUN.

The birds on my stamp, and what a beautiful stamp it is, like most of Czech issues, are members of  the Aegithalidae and Passeridae families. The former comprises ten species of smallish long tailed passerines, the sole European example being the long tailed tit whose image features in the stamp and the latter includes the Old World sparrows, snowfinches and relatives, with two very common sparrows being illustrated: the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) and the Eurasian tree sparrow, (Passer montanus).

For some unfortunate reason, during traffic part of the stamp was torn off  so it became mutilated  but.. hey.,  always look on the bright side of life... accidents do happen and since this isn’t the first, I think I'll add another tag to the tag rostrum: “Accidents”. I'm sure, in time, I can come up with an interesting collection.   

The very clean and clear postmark tells us that the letter was mailed from Pisek, a city of some 30,000 inhabitants, located in the South Bohemia region.