Christmans Island in Kiribati, Heat Wave, A Plastov Painting, Upcoming World Post Day and other Goodies

Well October is upon us and I guess it's time for another update. First , let me publicize World Post Day for 2013. It is fast approaching and we can all celebrate it on Wednesday, October 9th. 

World Post Day is celebrated each year on 9 October, the anniversary of the establishment of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874 in the Swiss capital, Berne. It was declared World Post Day by the UPU Congress held in Tokyo, Japan, in 1969. The purpose of World Post Day is to create awareness of the role of the postal sector in people’s and businesses’ everyday lives and its contribution to the social and economic development of countries. So how can we philatelists and postcarders celebrate? I haven't decided yet what I will do , but I'm sure it will involve dropping a postcard or two in the postbox on October 9th. So , what are you, my readers going to do ?  Here's a deal for you  - the first of my readers that tells me , via a comment , how they will celebrate World Post Day, will receive a nice postcard from me, with a great selection of Canadian stamps. Don't forget to include your name and address in your comment. In addition to that, this is also what I will do. I will drop the names of all the regular postcard contributors to this blog into a hat and have My Lovely Teena draw one name and I get a postcard off to that person, on World Post Day. Here are the names going into the hat : Ravindra, Leslie, Michael, Ana,  Don, Dominique, M.J.M, Joe, Daniel, Fabienne, Bruce, Johan, David and Jean Pierre. Good Luck one and all. 

Here's my first card for today. I realize it's only just October , not even Halloween  yet, but the card comes from Christmas Island, Republic of Kiribati. David wrote "greetings from the Line Islands ".    

The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands, is a chain of eleven atolls and low coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands , that stretches for 2,350 km in a northwest-southeast direction, making it one of the longest island chains of the world. Eight of the islands form part of Kiribati, while the remaining three are United States territories .

Those that are part of Kiribati are in the world's farthest forward time zone, UTC+14:00. The time of day is the same as in Hawaii, but the date is one day ahead.     

Here are Images of Christmas Island, as seen on David's card .

David used a couple of nice topical bird stamps from Kiribati on this card. They are 2 of 12 definitives in the Birds set issued in 2008. 

 Nice large Christmas Island cancel  which is always a plus on a stamp.

This next card is from Germany. The card is entitled "Cafe Terrace, 1971 Heat Wave ". I'm not quite sure if the gent on the right is wiping the sweat of his brow from the heat wave or from the effort of lifting that giant glass of beer. Either way, his  thirstiness should be quenched. Those have to be the biggest beer glasses I have even seen, they are bigger than their heads.

Just an everyday Flower definitive on this one, which I really don't need to show. 

Now for the Plastov painting postcard. This Russian card shows  the 1954 Aikady Aleksandrovich Plastov painting "Spring ", sometimes called Old Village Bath. You can find it in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. 

 Again this one arrived with a very common definitive which I'm not showing this time.

Here's  a postcard from Belarus that arrived covered in stamps both back and front. Of course , the front of the card is commemorating 20 years of Belarus Bird stamps .  I'm not quite sure how they make 20 years out of this as the card was issued in 2012 and the earliest bird stamp depicted on the card was issued in 2002. In my mind that's just 10 years, but what's 10 years among friends. 

 As I mentioned the back of the card is pretty well covered with stamps, 8 in all. They include animal definitives from 2007 and 2008. The large swan stamp was issued in 1994 and the flower definitives in 2008. Veronica also used a nice 2011 stamp commemorating Preservation of the Poles and Glaciers. It is 1 of 2 in the set. 

Here's the last card for today. It is from Belgium and was sent by a Postcrosser named Helen. It is a bit of an ad card for Jantzen swimwear . Any girl can be beautiful and new, or at least their slogan says.

Helen used two of the new Belgian Chocolate stamps. They are 2 of 5 in the set , issued this year. And, if you try really hard, you should be able to smell the chocolate out there. 

That's it for this time. Thanks go out to Helen, Veronica and David and a couple of others for these cards. 

Don't forget about the upcoming World Post Day.   Hope to hear from you all. Take care.