Thematic Photography - Floored

You should not slip up on the industrial flooring that Carmi has posted for this prompt.

It reminded me that every day on my walk to collect a newspaper I pass over these studs warning the blind or poorly sighted that there is a road to be crossed.

Many drives to houses have been blocked paved but there are some that are more interesting.

Pebbles and a mixture of stones set in concrete

I guess that they are a bit of a bumpy ride; much smoother are these recycled cobbles.

However the first uncarpeted floor I see each day is the one in our kitchen - with tiles that originated in Spain.

To check out Carmi's post and any other contributors follow the links at Thematic-photographic-420-floored.

Aerial Views - Sunday Stamps II

This is yet another theme that proved harder than I thought. 

So much so, in fact, that initially I could only come up with these - not really true aerial shots at all.

USA - Jet Liner over Capitol - 5 December 1962

And from Poland a stamp commemorating the development of air travel.

Poland - 27 November 1978

I googled aerial views and found that of the many stamp images I had only one in my collection and that from 1969.

Spain - Gibraltar - 16 July 1969

I shall have to study what others have posted this week at Sunday-stamps-II-134. to see whether there are different stamps that I could/should have posted.

The Colour Red - Sunday Stamps II

Finding a stamp that was red without another shade or colour proved more difficult than I thought.

These two are the best I could come up with.

Spain - 24 March 1963

This was one of a set of stamps showing stamps by Jose de Ribera and depicts St John the Bapist.

My GB stamp this week was one of a set commemorating the London 2010 Festival of Stamps and the Centenary of the Accession of King George V.

Great Britain - 6 May 2010

Oh and the Gibbons' catalogue calls the colour 'rosine'.

For other shades of red just visit the links at Violet's Sunday-Stamps-ii-61.

Folk/National Costumes - Sunday Stamps II

I need some help this week as I have some Bulgarian stamps that I have been unable to find any information about other than that they were issued in 1961

Bulgaria - 1961

I've searched for the names of the costumes show on the LHS of each stamp but haven't succeeded in finding out what they represent.

Bulgaria - 1961

I had more success with provincial costumes from Spain.

Spain 1968 - Huelva Provincial Costume

The city of Huelva, in the province of the same name in South-West Spain, has been inhabited since 3000BC.

Spain 1967

Burgos a city in Northern Spain is the historic capital of the province of Castille.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps II - 41 which you will find at See it on a postcard.

I am away from home this week so may not be able to comment on stamps posted by the other participants or submit the link to this post there. I'll get round to them as soon as I can.

A - Z Challenge 2015 - Butterflies 'O'

O - Orange Tip

There really is no mistaking this very aptly named butterfly if you are looking at the male.

Orange Tip Butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines)

It's believed that the orange tips to its wings are a warning colouration derived from its liking for the garlic mustard plant and indicating that it is not palatable to predators.

The underside of its wings has a pattern of green blotches formed by a combination of yellow and black scales which provide the orange tip with excellent camouflage when its wings are closed.

Orange Tips mating showing the coloured underside

However when you see the female of the species you might think that it is just another white butterfly.

Female Orange Tip

Without the orange on the tips of its wings it is often mistaken for other white butterflies.

The caterpillars feed on the cuckooflower (as the female butterfly above), garlic mustard and charlock. The adult orange  tips sip nectar from bluebells, brambles, bugle, dandelion and ragged robin - all of which have flowers common in our area of Yorkshire.

I shall have to look out for the butterfly this summer. I can't say I've seen one before.

The BBC Springwatch programme is using the Orange Tip butterfly to map the progress of spring this year. People are asked to record and report the date on which they see the first one. 

There is an even more spectacular orange tip in Europe. The Southern Orange Tip (Anthocharis euphenoides) is yellow in fact.

Southern (Yellow) Orange Tip

This one was photographed in Spain. I could go there or to the Alps to catch sight of one.

Love is like a butterfly
As soft and gentle as a sigh
The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside
It flutters like soft wings in flight
Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing

I feel it when you're with me
It happens when you kiss me
That rare and gentle feeling that I feel inside
Your touch is soft and gentle
Your kiss is warm and tender
Whenever I am with you I think of butterflies

Love is like a butterfly
The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside

Photo attributions:

• Orange Tip (Anthocharis cardamines): 15 April 2014 in Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, Sharp Photography, by Charlesjsharp - CC BY-SA 3.0
• Orange Tips mating: uploaded by Entomolo, 17 April 2011, by hamonjp - CC BY-SA 3.0
• Southern (Yellow) Orange Tip: Male, near Higuera de Calatrava, Spain, 19 March 2008, by Joan Cales Hinojosa Galisteo - CC BY-SA 3.0

Furniture - Sunday Stamps

Furniture has proved to be a most difficult theme for me. There is furniture on the stamps I've chosen but it's not the focus of attention.

Norway - King Olav II (c. 995 - 1030)

He was the first effective king of all Norway and the country's patron saint. 

I know nothing about my second stamp, but it does contain a chair.

Spain

My third stamp has two chairs and a cloth covered table on a 75th anniversary commemorative.

Great Britain - 1970

As I've 'cheated' I look forward to following the links at Viridian's Sunday-Stamps-197. to see some real furniture.

Reptiles - Sunday Stamps

Viridian's reptile theme proved harder than I thought and I have had to show some stamps for a second time.

This one from Australia was included before with several other wildlife stamps so deserves an outing on its own.

Saltwater Crocodile - Australia

You can read about crocodylus porosos here. . The stamp was issued in 1994.

The marine iguana on the next stamp was part of a 2009 set to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin.

Marine Iguana - Great Britain

And as Viridian also allowed amphibians this week I thought the common frog from from the Europa Pond Life series deserved to be seen.

Common Frog - Great Britain 2001

One of my daughter's dogs spends a lot of time trying to catch Rana clamitans (the American Green Frog) - I wonder whether she would be interested in a common frog from Britain.

The European Green Lizard (Lagarto verde; scientific name lacerta viridis) appears on a stamp issued in 1974.

European Green Lizard - Spain

To my surprise I did not find a stamp showing a snake of any kind. To see whether anyone else, has try the links at Sunday-Stamps-185 where there is another green lizard on view.

Farms and Farm Animals - Sunday Stamps

I occasionally hang on to damaged stamps and this week I am glad I do as I have two of them to share for this farming post.

My first stamp is from a series on horses but some of these were used for farming purposes.

Great Britain - Shire Horse

That's a plough in the background so we know what this one was used for.

One of my damaged stamps shows Mechanical Farming.

Great Britain

The horse depicted on this stamp issued for the Millennium could even be a Shire Horse. I am always on the lookout to obtain this undamaged.

I found a stamp from India showing tea plucking in progress. I guess you could call a tea plantation a farm.

India - Plucking Tea

There is a lot of hard work in progress on this farming stamp from Vietnam.

Vietnam

North Borneo became a Crown Colony in 1946; now a State in Malaysia it changed its name to Sabah in 1964.

North Borneo (Sabah) - Farm Cattle

You might say that my last (damaged) stamp was not intended as a 'farming' stamp but I would say it depicts a farming activity from long ago.

Spain - 2000th Anniversary of the Foundation of Caceres

Norba Caesarina was a Roman city in Spain. Caceres is close to the Spanish border with Portugal.

To see more farming stamps you need to trot over to Viridian's Sunday-stamps-163.

Women on Sunday Stamps

As March is Women's History Month the theme Viridian chose for us this week was women on stamps. This caused me to examine my stamps more closely to find out more about the women depicted.

Spain

This is Maria Pacheco (1496 - 1531) from the House of Mendoza. She successfully led the defence of Toledo against royalist forces  after the death of her husband at the Battle of Villalar in 1521.

Kerstin Hesselgren had a battle of a different kind,

Kerstin Hesselgren (1872 - 1962)

Kerstin was the first woman elected to the Swedish Parliament's Upper Chamber when women obtained the vote in 1921.

She appeared on Swedish stamps commemorating the 50th anniversary of female suffrage in 1971.

Sweden

The dangers of the Internet showed themselves when i took up Google's offer to translate "Rostratt for kvinnor" and it gave me initially "Stainless Steering Wheel for Women!" It's "Female Suffrage" I then found out.

There are more women to admire on Viridianpostcard.blogspot.co.uk/

National Costumes - Sunday Stamps

My previous post on National Costumes has had 456 visitors so far. Now it's time to see whether photos of two of my daughter's stamps attract as  high a number of visitors.

Austria - Tyrol Pustertal

This costume is from Tyrol, Pustertal - the Pustertal (Puster Valley) in the Alps runs East-West from Lienz in the Tyrol, Austria to Brixen in South Tyrol, Italy.

Spain - Badajoz

The costume is from the Province of Badajoz, capital Badajoz close to the Portuguese border on the left bank of the River Guadiana.

To see costumes from elsewhere cross over to Viridian at Sunday-stamps-139.

Castles in Spain - Sunday Stamps

The theme this week is "Churches, Castles and Fortifications" and as I wrote about castles in the A-Z Challenge in 2012, it seemed right to go with castles this week as well.

Spain - Castles

The three castles are:

• Peñafiel
• Ponferrada
• Almansa

Thanks to Creative Commons we can see what they look like in their natural surroundings.

Castillo de Peñafiel, Valladolid, Spain

Templar Castle in Ponferrada, Spain

Castle of Almansa, Spain

To see what others have chosen this week, please cross over to Viridian's sunday-stamps-126.

Photo Attributions:

• Peñafiel - By GS3; CC BY-SA 3.0
• Ponferrada - de Benutzer Dietmar Gikjohann; CC BY-SA 3,0
• Almansa - By JorgeLC; Public Domain.

Beginning or End - Sunday Stamps

I had several stamps lined up  to cover the beginning of something as I thought, erroneously, that this was the theme for this week's Sunday Stamps. Now I find the actual challenge is to find a stamp commemorating the end of something.

Nevertheless I am going to proceed with what I had in mind to see if I can get there in the end.

My favourite market stallholder seems to have bought up the collection of a man from the town of Hartlepool. Among a number of first day covers, I found this:

Philatelic Souvenir from Spain

 Inside the envelope was a hand written message on a card.

From this I have deduced that Mother and Dad had begun their holiday in Spain and as you can see the plane was new. Boeings 737s started commercial services in 1968; unfortunately the date on the postmark can't be seen but could have been in the early 1970s.

The postmark tells us the envelope was posted at Malgrat; Malgrat de Mar is situated in the province of Barcelona, Catalonia on the Mediterranean coast of Spain.

The two CEPT stamps with the Europa Bird were first issued in 1961.

The stamps on the bottom row show the Costa Brava and Lope de Vega, author, playwright and poet (1562-1635)

On the top row from left to right are:

• Torla in the province of Huesca, Aragon. Take a good look at the stamp and compare it with this picture ex wikipedia

Torla (by Gordito1869 - 1987 - CC BY 3.0)

• Nave Medieval - medieval ship.
• Betanzosica, Corunna - Emblem, church stamp issued 1967
• Catedral Sevilla - Seville Cathedral issued in 1965.

That's the last of the stamps I have to offer, Perhaps I should say that Seville Cathedral is a World Heritage Site. It also the burial site for Christopher Columbus so you could claim that his voyages came to an end here.

Don't forget to visit the usual crowd at Viridian's Sunday-stamps-103

Maps - Sunday Stamps

I believe I have posted stamps from Argentina and Ceylon before which showed maps of these countries. Rather than repeat them I discovered I had others.

United Nations - world map

This is the only UN stamp I have. 

A Spanish stamp has not only the a map of Spain but shows Peru and Mexico too.

Spain 

I hope someone will be able to tell me what it was issued for - Fifth Centenary of Printing?

India

These stamps showing the Indian sub-continent probably date before the country was partitioned and before Pakistan and Bangladesh existed.

Iceland

There are a number of stamps from Iceland with different maps of the island.

Iceland

Landsimmi is the Icelandic telecommunications company, now called Siminn. In 1906 a telephone cable was laid from Scotland to the Faroe Islands and Iceland. I believe 1956 was the first time that lines reached the whole of Iceland.

For other views of the world through maps on stamps visit Viridian's Sunday Stamps 72

From A Rock to Art Nouveau - Sunday Stamps

Gibraltar

Gibraltar is an important naval base and a British territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. The Rock of Gibraltar is its major landmark, It is said that the British will leave Gibraltar when the Barbary apes leave The Rock. Ceded to Britain by Spain in 1713 sovereignty of Gibraltar remains a point of contention between the two countries.

Germany

Jugendstil is an artistic style that arose in Germany in the 1890s and continued through the first decade of the 20th Century. Its name derives from the Munich magazine Die Jugend ("Youth") which featured Art Nouveau designs.

For more stamps from Europe visit Viridian's Sunday Stamps 39