You only need to be standing, in order to fall.... Monsieur de La Palice couldn't have put it better, I presume, but the fact was that I tripped on crossing a street, fell, tried to protect my face with my hand and made a mess of it. So much so, that on top of a nice purplish blue eye ,  I had a thumb completely displaced and in the aftermath of it I had to undergo hand surgery and am still recovering with the help of physiotherapy.

that is why I have not been updating my blog for the past month or so.

I now have regained the ability to do it and in the coming weeks i'll try to bring it up to date, with the few  nice covers and postcards I got in my letterbox in the meantime.

so... back to normal programming!😀

and a belated 

HAPPY NEW YEAR, to anyone reading this!

POSTCARD N.50 -  United States of America
Postcrossing postcard sent on the 15th November; received on the 25th November
Postcard image: Arizona - The Grand Canyon State
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The desert and all those amazing tall cacti plus the inebriating views of the Grand Canyon. The stuff of longing... yes, I've always wanted to go there and see it in the ..well...rock and chlorophyll. 

Looking at the postcard Roxanne sent me (a great Thanks, Roxanne!) only served to remember me that there is so much world out there to see, this feeling being strongly accentuated against the backdrop of a pandemic that is raging and condemns us to stay... just a little bit longer (hopefully).

And I know, i'm one of the lucky ones. I live in a country where almost 90% of the population is fully vaccinated, a sound proof that our public health system, even though stressed to the limit, can deliver due to the generous and committed effort of our doctors, nurses and health system support professionals. Brave people they are, and brave people we are for fully accepting the vaccination programme. Of course we still have infections and deaths, but the numbers can't compare with those from one year ago when people weren't yet vaccinated.

Richer nations like mine can even afford to have fringes of population that think they are better off living in interactive flirting with such sexy objects of desire as smallpox and measles and covid-19, in the comfort of their fully infrastructured societies, where water never stops to run in the tap, sewage goes somewhere the eyes don't see and the nose doesn't smell, light bulbs are a human right, and so on.

Of course richer nations even have those that believe that the planet, our planet, is flat...

I am no expert, but I do have faith in Science and Knowledge, They are the only way out, and they have to be taken everywhere... in a massive vaccination effort, just like the Covid vaccines.  It is no perfect solution, yet, but so far it is the only one we have and the world should be concentrating in ensuring that people on all corners of the ROUND planet (I know, corners and round don't match, but idiomatics are exercises of poetic freedom, aren't they?) get their shots so that, just like measles (or even better smallpox) the only ones who get it are those that so chose, in the exercise of their right to abuse themselves.

What has this all got to do with Arizona and the grand Canyon? I don't know, but sometimes words just go their own way across the keyboard....

Nice card, isn't it?

Roxanne used a "Forever"  Global rate  self-adhesive Stamp, issued as a single stamp on 24APR2020, with a nice picture of a Chrysanthemum.

The machine applied cancellation identifies the mailing local as Arizona's State capital: Phoenix.

COVER N.55 - Canada

Postmark: Santa Claus North Pole - Canada
Posted on (?); received on the 24th November
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He exists, after all... and I have a letter from him to prove it - well, from one of his elves, because I'm sure he can only answer the mail of big shots, like Presidents, Kings and so on, for protocol reasons, which are more than understandable.  It even has some handwriting from an elf.. Outstanding!

Sure the stamp is printed, and so is the postmark, but I'll keep it on my collection just the same. After all, someone was kind enough to read my letter to Santa and add some handwritten words to his standard reply.

As I said before, I'm not that fond of Christmas, but I just can't escape it and I confess I felt rather pleased to open my letter box and see this nice colourful envelope inside. 

Thank you so much Santa, you've made my day, and I hope all around the world your letters may kindle hope and longing, not for the thousandth Barbie or Action man but for that little three letter latin world that everybody understands but that sadly and strangely is so difficult to impart: Pax!

 COVER N.54 - Slovakia

Postmark: Bratislava
Posted on the 15th November; received on the 23rd November
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Within days of receiving a cover from Slovakia, I got another one. As the portuguese saying goes, "there's no hunger that doesn't become abundance".  Thanks so much for the nice cover Venco. 

 

The 0,95€ stamp was issued on Stamp day - 03DEC2018 - and it celebrates the first Czechoslovak stamp ever issued, that is reproduced on the stamp. A se-tenant vignette is illustrated with the picture of the designer of the first stamp, Alfons Mucha.

The Tariff 1, 50g stamp was issued on 04APR2019 and it celebrates the 75th anniversary of ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

The aircraft depicted on the stamp is a Caproni Ca.3, a bomber used in the first world war by the Italian Army. The plane was that on which  General Milan Rastislav Stefanik flew to his death on a crash close to the airfield of Bratislava where he was about to land after departing from Italy.

Other than aviator Milan Rastislav Stefanik was also an astronomer, a skill that would take him to France eventually to obtain French citizenship in 1902 and an active participation in the First World War, fueled by the belief that the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a member of the triple alliance with Germany and Italy, would lead the way to an independent Czechoslovakia.

This objective t was fully achieved  as a result of the efforts and action of the Czechoslovak National Council created by  Tomáš Masaryk, Edvard Beneš  and Milan Stefanik, when, on the 28th October 1918, a fortnight before the end of the hostilities of the War to end all wars, Czechoslovakia became independent, although still within the Austgro-Hungarian Empire.

POSTCARD N.49-  Belarus

Postcrossing postcard sent on the 26th October; received on the 22nd November
Postcard image: Tradiitonal Belarus Costumes (?)
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I love a surprise. Today, as usual, I went to check my letterbox. All I found inside were the usual supermarket promotion brochures, which I confess I seldom open at all. After dinner I picked up the two or three brochures and was going to thrown them on the recycling bin when out of one a postcard dropped to the floor. I couldn't believe my luck... Not that I could be blamed, but I was going to unknowingly throw away a postcard from someone who had gone through the care and trouble of writing it to me... As of today, I'll never throw a supermarket catalogue brochure into the bin without first making sure there's nothing inside 😀

And what would be more: not only would I be throwing away a pretty nice postcard, with a great stamp on it, but I would miss the opportunity of adding another country to my list: Belarus. Thank you so Much Maria, for your nice Postcard!

Belarus... quite cited on the news lately... just as my own country, decades ago, would also be cited on the news abroad.. the essence of people is the same everywhere though, no matter who leads, or rules, or reigns, or dictates,  a friendly gesture like writing a postcard to a complete stranger just goes to prove it!

I quite like the postcard Maria sent me. Not being able to read Belarusian, I would presume that it shows  local  traditional costumes . I tried to find a photo on the internet of a wooden church similar to that on the card to try to identify the region, but I wasn't lucky.

Being a Postcrosser herself, Maria went through the trouble of making sure she would post her card with the most appropriate stamp: the N tariff (surface international postcard) single issue set stamp celebrating Postcrossing, issued on 21JUL21.

 So far, it seems, 15 postal administrations have issued Postcrossing themed stamps, these being those of Russia, Austria, Belarus, The Channel Islands, The Czech Republic, Finland, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Ukraine, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Poland, Ireland, Äland and Brazil. Strangely enough, the place where it all started, my own country, hasn't yet obliged...

The two small 1(cucumber) and 5 (carrot) kapeyka self-adhesive imperforated stamps are part of a definitive "vegetable" 14 stamp set, issued on 01JUL2020.

The postmark was applied twice and it is not very clear, but it seems to read Minsk, (the Belarus Capital) what confers with where Maria sais she was writing from.

COVER N.53 - Slovakia

Postmark: Illegible
Posted on (?); received on the 17th November
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My second received mail ever from Slovakia. More than aything else, I'm having a lot of fun with this new hobby of mine. It really feels good to open the letterbox not knowing if there's anything new inside and if yes where from...

A full seven months have passed since I started this blog and in the meantime I have already received mail from 37 different stamp emitting countries/entities.  that's encouraging, to say the very least.

Yesterday another large envelope full of goodies greeted me, upon opening the letterbox. Tank you so much Venco!

The Tariff 2 stamp, although not mentioning it, is presumably one of  the 2020's Christmas stamp emissions of the Slovak Post (Slovenská pošta), issued on 13NOV2020. The illustration depicts a textile snow flake pattern and the stamp layout mirrors that of another stamp dedicated to traditional textile designs issued on 13MAR20. The stamp was also issued in self-adhesive format.

The 1,10€ stamp is the 2018 EUROPA stamp issued on 04MAY2018. Citing Post Europe site, the stamp depicts "the Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) over the Danube River in Bratislava (.It) joins the city centre with the newly built housing complex of Petržalka. It was created by architects Jozef Lacko, Ladislav Kušnír, Ivan Slameň and a stress analyst, Arpád Tesár, from the Slovak University of Technology, and built between years 1967 and 1972.

Again,  a stamp take me on a trip down memory lane, and i ahd to go over to my photoalbum to recall my visit to Bratislava and the picture I took of this same bridge....

COVER N.52 - Germany

Postmark: Kiel, 12OCT2021 
Posted on the 12 October; received on the 16th November
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Lovely cover, said I to none other than myself upon opening my letterbox to find this nice clean and simple envelope inside. Thanks a lot, Andreas!

I believe, from consulting the philatelic information sheets that Deutsch Post publishes, that Germany has a very prolific special commemorative postmark yearly programme. I don't know if this has anything to do with the fact of it being a Federal Republic with events, personalities, occasions worthy of special note at State level feeding into the Deutsch Post philately department, but the truth is that it only takes a glimpse of those information sheets to notice that month after month a lot  of nice commemorative postmarks are used on a varying selection of German cities.

The beautiful postmark was issued in the city of Kiel on 12OCT21 for the Day of the Postage stamp (Tag der Briefmarke) and as far as I could understand it was promoted by the Philatelic Society of Kiel 

(Kieler Philatelisten-Verein von 1931 e.V). The personality it honours is that of Heinrich von Stephan (1831-1897) who organised the German post under the German empire and who was also a key personality in the foundation of the General Postal Union (1874) that would evolve to become the Union Postale Universelle (1878).

The two stamps used are part of a series that began in 2014 dedicated to "Baby animals", the 80 cent stamp with the image of a baby otter (Lutra lutra) was issued on 03SEP2020. 

The European otter has a very wide distribution and it can be found from Ireland and my own country, Portugal,  to Japan, and from as far North as Finland to Indonesia on Southeast Asia. It has a lifespan of 6 to 8 years and it has a Near Threatened global conservation status.

The 60 cent stamp featuring the photograph of a baby hamster (Cricetus cricetus) is half of this year's emission of the series (the other stamp presenting the photo of an Alpine Ibex) at it was issued on 10JUN2021.

The European Hamster is now considered to be Critically Endangered as far as its global conservation status is concerned, with populations dwindling due to habitat loss and hunting for fur collection.  According to Wikipedia it  can be found in  Belgium and Alsace in the west, to Russia in the east, and Bulgaria in the south. It has a lifespan of up to 8 years.

Of note is the fact that the 2021 stamp is already fitted with the special code that allows tracking of the letter it has been used on.