Piecing the universe together

Eva sent me this amazing large envelope. It turns out that Eva has sent quite a few astronauts, including several to me.

One of the stamps, a large one, was issued in 2019 to celebrate the province of Almeria as a capital of Spanish gastronomy. Known for its greenhouse farming, the province is considered the garden of Europe. The central feature on the stamp is a heart-shaped tomato, and other fruits and vegetables are shown, along with shrimp - indicative of the province's 200 km (about 125 miles) of coastline.

The theme for today's Sunday Stamps is food - click here for more stamps on this topic.

Throwback Thursday

This might be the blog's first Throwback Thursday.

On this blogpost a little over 5 years ago, I showed an envelope I sent to John in the UK.

I finally have a picture of the postmarks applied.

Thanks for the photo, John.

From Japan

I had sent an extra card to postcrosser Mitsumi in Japan, and some time later this nice envelope arrived.

It contained a nice surprise - several pre-paid postcards, all featuring Mount Fuji.

Circus Letters

Eva sent me this great envelope where she wrote my name in large, circus-style letters. At first I thought they were printed because they are so neatly drawn.

One of the stamps is perfect for today's Sunday Stamps prompt of 'Illustrations'.

Here is D'Artacán, from the Japanese animated series titled D'Artacán y los Tres Mosqueperros in Spanish. The English title is Dogtanian and the three Muskehounds, with Dogtanian being a portmanteau of dog and d'Artagnan.

For more illustrations on stamps, explore the links at Sunday Stamps.

The Olympic Games

The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games were supposed to start today. They have, of course, been postponed to 2021.

In honor of the spirit of the Olympics, I have a couple of envelopes that I haven't blogged.

One from Maggie

And one from Jean (I know, it is summer, but it is so hot just looking at these stamps makes me feel cooler).

Have you ever attended an Olympic event?

Freakshow

I used a wine label to create a circus-themed envelope for Eva. I don't have any circus-related stamps, but I thought the metallic accents on the celebrate stamps were a good match.

You can see how well it traveled on Eva's blog.

I confess that I often buy wine based on the label - how do you choose your wine?

A very slow parrot

This great envelope from Katerina took a very long time to get here due to the pandemic. For a while the Greek post office was not accepting any items to send to the USA (although I could send to Greece). It hasn't been exactly speedy since resuming, either. This colorful envelope was posted in May, and arrived in July.

Finally it arrived with all of its great contents! It was well worth the wait.

Do you have a mail story that happened because of the pandemic?