nature park

 

The Palatinate Forest is one of the largest contiguous forest areas in Germany.  It is a low mountain region in the southwest with it's highest elevation at 672.6 m

not always h

 

With four official languages in Switzerland, trying to fit Schweiz, Suisse, Svizerra, and the Romansch Svizra would take up most of the room on a stamp, so they settled on the Latin name 'Helvetia' (official name Confederatio Helvetica- why the CH as the international country code).  Interestingly, in Irish Gaelic and Romanian, the name for Switzerland is closer to Helvetia than variations of Swiss.

'Croatia', on the other hand, is from the Latin name for the country. Hrvatska is derived from the Slavic name, which is used by the people themselves.  The international country code is HR instead of CR because it was already taken by Costa Rica.  I admit, I often initially mistake HR for Hungary

another country with a non English name on their stamp (we'll get to that one with 'M')

I found an interesting article explaining how Croatia/Hrvatska came to be. The original Slavic name was Horvatska, later into Hrvatska.  Latin does not really pronounce the letter 'h', and starting the name with just an 'r' wasn't quite right, so they made it a 'ch' which became just a 'c'.  A 'v' after an 'r' is easy for Slavic speakers but not Latin, so it was transformed into a vowel 'o'.  So now we have a Slavic 'Horvat'  which became Hrvat, which became a Latin 'Croat' with the usual Latin ending for Slavic countries 'ia'

comfort

 

CATURDAY

where twines the path

Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park (est 2002)

 

"The Trossachs were Scotlands first National Park.  A place where the lowlands and highlands meet, with varied scenery of rolling lowland landscapes, tranquil lochs and rugged mountains in the north"

Loch Lomond is perhaps the better known of the 22 lochs

but Loch Katrine is lovely to walk around

gabon

 

Gabon, on the west coast of Africa on the equator

stamp shows a colourful, but toxic, "sunset moth"  their bright colours are a warning to predators 

overwhelmed

 

CATURDAY

famous

 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - even his name sounds musical - (1756-1791) 

 

Ava Gabor (1919-1995) here portraying Lisa Douglas with Arnold the pig, from the 1960s tv show Green Acres

croaking

 

The Rana pretiosa - Oregon spotted frog - is the most endangered frog in Canada. There's only a couple hundred of them found in the lower section of British Columbia

The Anaxyrus fowleri - Fowler's toad- is an east coaster from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, but is only found in Canada in a small section of southwestern Ontario.

In both cases, habitat loss from development and pollution are contributors to their decline.

A frog and a toad - at least he's a Fowler's toad - for stamps with an F

friends

 

CATURDAY

reading

I love this one of the little polar bear reading, illustrated by Hans de Beer

Ot en Sien,  illustrated by Cornelis Jetses

hopelessly old fashioned, and no longer read in schools, but I still have  the books I collected to learn Dutch when I was living there.

I've not actually read this book, (illustrations by Quentin Blake)  but I love the movie and will watch it every time it's on tv. 

It may surprise some people, but for someone who is terrified of spiders, this was one of my favourite stories.  illustrated by Garth Williams

some children's stories for the first week back to school for Thursday Postcard Hunt

kyusu