Sweden

I might have lived most of my life next to Sweden but I've only ever been there once and my family doesn't have any relatives there, so my contact with the country has always been pretty limited. That, and I always lived in eastern Finland, where it is more common to hear Russian than Swedish. So yeah, my collection of postcards from Sweden is tiny to say the least. That's why I was so excited a while ago when a nice postcrosser from Sweden offered to swap with me.



I have no idea of the exact location of the place on this card, but it reminds me a lot of Astrid Lindgren's Barnen i Bullerbyn, particularly the 1986 movie "Alla vi barn i Bullerbyn" ('The Children of Noisy Village') which I loved when I was a kid, and I still really like it. They seem to live such an innocent, carefree life in that film, it's rather adorable.





The stamps are from a set of 5 stamps issued in 2010, depicting flowers (Pansies).

Cambridge, England

This week has been really cold over here. Today's been the worst so far - this morning it was only +9 C in my bedroom! I've got the little heater on but I still feel like an icicle, and my fingers are pretty stiff. Fun time typing... :p We haven't had any snow in this area so far, but might get some this weekend. I hope the weather reports are wrong. :/ I don't like it when everything stops thanks to half an inch of snow, and also because our house is so stupidly cold. I should probably move to the front room where it's nice and warm as the fire's on in the fireplace. ...but then I can't DO anything, grrr.

Anyway, I thought this postcard would be fitting for now. You don't usually get scenes like this in this country, it only snows a couple of times a year on average. It's pretty but sooo inconvenient.



Snow aside this is a very typical view in Cambridge. There are bicylcles EVERYWHERE, I remember that from when I visited there some years ago. Jacqueline who sent me this card explains that there are very few places to park a car, so bicycles are an ideal means of transport. They are also fairly cheap for students to use. ...I guess it's also safer to cycle in Cambridge than in the West Midlands. I wouldn't risk using a bicycle over here, there's way too much traffic over here and I wouldn't trust drivers to be careful enough. It's a shame because it would be a great way to get some exercise too, but what can you do. *sigh*

Cambridge is also very topical to me at the moment in a different way... That is, because of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie who went to university there. They were on tv yesterday, together for the first time in 15 years! There's more about Fry And Laurie Reunited here if you're interested and want to watch clips of the program. It was excellent, SO good to see them together again! Hehe, and now I really want to rewatch 'A Bit of Fry and Laurie' :D







I love this year's Christmas stamps in the UK. Wallace & Gromit! It's just a shame they have to be so small.

Inge Löök grannies

I love Inge Löök's grannies, they are so anarchistic and really seem to enjoy life. They are just so much fun! :)



This is such a cool card - sent by the lovely Lilla in Finland, it's from the "Cards with thematic stamps" RR which I really like and hope to join some more groups after coming back home from Finland in a few weeks. Both the card and the stamp are women-related here. The stamp is even more amazing than the card... look:



It's from Åland!! The stamp is from a set of 3 stamps issued in 2009 showing Åland Authors, this one here is Anni Blomqvist. She is known, amongst other things, for the Stormskärs-Maja series ("Myrskyluodon Maija" in Finnish; "Maija from the Storm Skerries"). I'm not sure if I've ever read any of the books in this series, but I'm pretty sure I've watched some of the tv show from the 70s with the same title, and I really love the theme song for this series. It was composed by Lasse Mårtenson, a Finnish singer, composer and actor, and it's SO beautiful. I was really pleased to find it in Youtube, and have included it below. Do check it out!