beret

 

Life Notes of Cat

CATURDAY 

bern

a city with mountains

The taller spire, on the far right, is the Munster, and the shorter one in the middle with the green top is the Church of St Peter and Paul (I think). The bridge in the foreground may be the Kornhausbrucke.

a southern European city for Thursday Postcard Hunt 

casa loma

Possibly, in a totally unscientific poll, this is the most popular building to appear on postcards from Toronto

A 98 room mansion, considered North America's only true castle, a city owned landmark in the middle of Toronto

It is now a museum and event centre

I wrote more about it on my previous blog many years ago which you can read here (and see more postcards)

queen's park

Here is a bird's eye view of Queen's Park with the Ontario Legislative Assembly building, which is always known also as Queen's Park (as is the government)

The statue is of Sir John A MacDonald, Canada's first Prime Minister.  It has only recently been free of the hoarding that covered it in 2020 after it was vandalized in the wave of protests over the residential schools history.

You will have noticed that all of my parliament building postcards are vintage, some more so than others.  These next two are more recent.  It is not the most popular Toronto landmark to feature on a postcard, which is a shame.

I find it a beautiful old building (and the one I am most familiar with) and the asymmetry is pleasing to my eye. It is a Richardsonian Romanesque style (my favourite) built between 1886 and 1909.

What you can't tell from these, is that there are hundreds of gargoyles and grotesques and other faces (some, even, of the stonemasons who carved them!)

And so ends this tour of the parliament buildings since I don't have any from the three territories, and seem to be missing two provinces: Nova Scotia and Alberta. 

Tomorrow, I'll show what is the most popular building on a Toronto postcard.

parlement

Home to the National Assembly of Quebec in Quebec City. A second empire style building built between 1877 and 1886.
This may be a favourite card - embossed!

birds and bees

 

Seeing a bullfinch signifies good luck, new beginnings, love and divine messages

Seeing a male and female bullfinch side by side is indeed divine

sidenote:  Eurasian bullfinches don't make it as far as Canada, except for one who was found, with great excitement, in November '25 up in Yukon.

a western honey bee  from East Germany (1990) 

apis mellifica is actually made from the honey bee (apis mellifera) and is used to treat bee stings

cats on a boat

 

received from Japan

CATURDAY 

merlion

Every city should have an official mascot.

 Singapore has this mythical creature sculpted by Ling Nam Seng in 1972.  It's fish-like body symbolizes Singapore's origins as a fishing village, it's head represents the orginal name of Singapura, which is Sanskrit for lion city.

An Asian city for Thursday Postcard Hunt

province house

It hurts my brain a little to be going back and forth across the country like this, not to mention all the differing names on the cards...

Next up is the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island, known as Province House.  It is currently closed for conservation work.  It is the second oldest legislative building (1847).  Sadly, I haven't been able to determine when the fountain disappeared.

Again, older, hand painted cards have made the building redder than in real life.  Also, the trees are nice, but they do obscure the building somewhat.

confederation building

I didn't think I had a card of the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly, known as the Confederation Building, but here we are.  This is the closest view I found of the building built in 1960 (with an extension built in 1991) overlooking the capital city of St John's.  It is the most modern of the parliament buildings and the province only became a part of Canada in 1949.

snow moon

February (and January) is often the snowiest months of the year ... and that has proved true here this past week! 

bonus parliament postcard.  this is the granddaddy of the Parliament Buildings as seen from the back with the gorgeous Library of Parliament taking centre stage.  The library survived the 1916 fire (120 years ago on Feb 3rd) that destroyed the rest of the Centre Block building when the library clerk ordered the iron doors to be shut so the fire couldn't spread into the room.  In spite of WWI going on, the Centre Block was rebuilt and reopened in 1920.

aries

I have been saving these stamps for the next year of the ram - so 2027 - even though they aren't technically lunar new year stamps.

They were worth .59¢ when issued in 2011,  now they are worth $1.24

I do appreciate the colour bars on the selvedge in the shape of the ram's horns.

With this alphabet round, I am going to go with stamps related to flora and fauna.  Some may be rather tangentially related.

cat amongst the tiles

 I almost missed the cat for all the tiles, and she blends in so well

received from Portugal

CATURDAY

legislative assembly building

The New Brunswick Legislative Assembly Building stands out for the mansard roofs. The Second Empire style building in Fredricton was built in 1882 after the previous one was destroyed by fire. 

It's a shame you can't see the central octagon domed tower in this 1970's era prepaid postcard

light shows

We have been getting some showings of the aurora this past year, and I have missed pretty much all of them.  This view is from Norway, and I'd be really teed off if I spent thousands to go there and never saw them there, either.

Or, a guaranteed light show is on display at Niagara Falls all the time.

largest leg

Another Beaux-arts building, this one in Regina, Saskatchewan.  It has the distinction of being the largest of the legislative buildings (and seems to be variously called 'legislative' and 'parliament').  It overlooks Wascana Lake and was completed in 1912.  At the time, there was some assumption that the population would grow to be in the millions ... that has not happened and the population of Regina is now less than 290,000 and of all Saskatchewan around 1,266,000.

The dome is copper and is 56' high - specifically designed to be visible from nearly every point in the city.  I'm not sure how old this postcard is (1980s?), but I am sure that the skyline has changed considerably.

parliament buildings

Not all the legislative buildings have legislative building in their name.  British Columbia's is one of the few that are Parliament Buildings.  Built in 1893-97, in a mouthful of Neo-baroque Renaissance Revival Romanesque Revival style.  The colour  of the stone in the first card is more accurate than the second.

 

Atop this dome is a statue of George Vancouver, though I'm not sure it ever warranted its own postcard.

the leg

Inspired by Lisa's postcards last week of state capitol buildings, I spent the weekend searching for my collection of our provincial legislative buildings.  I know I don't have all 14 of them, but we'll see how interesting this is.  In no particular order, here's the first I found, for Manitoba, in the capital city of Winnipeg, a neoclassical, beaux-arts building built in 1920 known colloquially as "the Leg"

 

Atop the dome, in pride of place is the Golden Boy, Manitoba's best known symbol.  Modeled after the Roman god Mercury (or Greek god Hermes) he is meant to represent the prosperity and entrepreneurial spirit of the province.  He is facing north to symbolize Manitoba's future in looking towards the vast northern resources.

paintings

 rock paintings from Zimbabwe

the last of this series of stamps A to Z

I have so thoroughly enjoyed all that was offered, I thought we'd go through the alphabet again.  So, next week  another 'A'

kazan cat

 

Received from Russia with an interesting story.  The sender picked this up while on vacation in Kazan City where the Kazan cat has been the city mascot since at least since the 19th C.  A large part of Kazan's tourist souvenirs depicts cats they wrote.

After some sleuthing on my own, I read that there is a three metre high sculpture of a cat lounging on a couch with a mouse nearby.  Seems, back in 1745, while the Winter Palace was being built in St Petersburg, there was a problem with mice.  The Russian Empress learned about the Kazan cats that had remarkable strength and impressive mouse catching abilities.  30 of  them were soon sent to deal with the mouse infestation and some of their descendants are in the Hermitage even now, still ridding the place of pesky mice.

CATURDAY

a source of light in dark times

Abbell Synagogue, Hadassah University Medical Centre

"These windows were Chagall’s window of opportunity to give back to his people — a source of hope and light, illuminating the road taking the Jewish people from difficult times to a brighter future. The windows adhere to his usual colour palette of vivid blues, reds, greens and yellows and subject of abstract biblical motifs, with each window portraying one of the twelve tribes of Israel from Genesis"

tall trees

 

Redwoods, or Sequoias, are the tallest trees in the world and can live for thousands of years.  This particular view makes me dizzy just looking at it.

received from the US 

Y

I spent so much time looking for Q and X, that I forgot how challenging Y might be...

though Germany has a Y, there isn't a Y in  this Deutschland stamp 

maybe "youngsters"?  Bibi & Tina are fictional teenagers who apparently have exciting adventures  with their beloved horses (one is a witch with magical powers)

And Ukraine has a letter that looks like a Y 

though it is pronounced more like "oo"

mrs montoya's cat

 

received from U.S.   photographer Geraint Smith, Taos NM

CATURDAY

snow

I was going to use this for 'sunshine', but the snowy scene was too perfect

he is cutting a good figure in the snow

xhosa

 

This stamp shows a Xhosa woman and traditional beadwork.  It could also be considered x-rated - at least in Canada and USA?!

dreaming cat

 

CATURDAY

reflections

 

some Canadian reflections for Thursday Postcard Hunt

water

Sometimes it is enough just to get a bird's eye view of the water

other times, you want to be right in it

or maybe you'd like to live surrounded by water

russian cheshire

 

CATURDAY

wolf moon

 the first full moon of 2026, and the first supermoon