COVER N. 266 - CHINA

Postmark: ? - 03.06.2023

Posted on the 3rd June; Received on the 16th June 2023

_________________________________________________________________________________

Roses are red, and violets are blue.... so went Sandy Denny's immortal  "Old Fashion Waltz", but to my mind, roses have always been...  rosy.... Bang! This takes me back to Fairport Convention again....and to Dave Swarbrick's Rosie, the perfect soundtrack for this blog entry fuelled by one of the two Covers I received on the very same day from Ruinan in China. Thank you so much, Ruinan!

Back to roses, then.... The humble wild rose, the members of the genus Rosa, that are later declined into hundreds of cultivars....

Here's a photo of a wild rose I took in central Portugal a couple of years ago

 

I confess to have mixed feelings regarding Roses, though. If they do look nice and  sometimes smell very well indeed, some of the cultivars that are so common in urban gardens, have the most  annoying pricks there are (if you disconsider Bougainvilleas...)!

This I know from personal experience, and year after year, when the time has come to prune the shrub, I have a rather unpleasant conversation with a rose  plant that I have in my garden, which is always trying to inflict serious damages on my rather soft and delicate skin! And the worst is that,  most of the times, it is successful in its intent!

The stamps on Ruinan's cover are the four constituents of a set of 1,20 Yuan stamps issued on 20May2020, dedicated to... you've guessed it, roses. Although separated here on the cover, the stamps were issued as panes of four se-tenant, in sheets with two blocks of 4 stamps.

Left to right we have a white rose, a double petal pink rose, a single petal pink rose and a red rose (although it looks as pink as the others, to me...)

Roses are associated with love and lovers and it is no surprise to see hearts and swallows, and swans in the background of each stamp. The main image in each stamp is also encompassed by an embossed heart with little glittering dots on the embossed line. a bit kitschy to my taste, but the rose illustrations are very good.