The 15th Anniversary of the Death of Gilles Villeneuve (1950 -1982), Canada

First of all, I would like to thank you all for the kind comments on the last post and for your concern and wishes for well-being...it meant a real lot to me! Thank you!

And since it is Sunday today (well, early Sunday, just past midnight), it is time for Sunday Stamps, with this week's theme of  'commemorating a person' or 'event worth commemorating'. What seemed as piece of cake at the first thought of it, ended up with great doubts of 'what to post what to post'..and when I laid my eyes on this, I knew it had to be IT! (Though I must admit that my initial thought was also F1 related, but I'll save that one for another time =))

Anyways, it may also be a bit of a biased post - those who know me, know I am an F1 fan, though I must admit I haven't been so dedicated to following it the past few years as I used to be. But still, it holds a special place in my heart and if Raikkonen starts performing better, I will surely get back to watching it more regularly.
Well, it is not Raikkonen for today, but Gilles Villeneuve, whom I have never had a chance to see him racing, since he had died when I barely knew to walk, but I do admire him and that's why I thought he deserved to find his place in today's post...not to mention that I absolutely LOVE this sheet! And for an F1 fan it is a great treasure to have as well :)

*from the booklet in which it was enclosed:

Blinding speed, astonishing car control, fierce determination and ferocious tenacity; these are the characteristics that marked Gilles Villeneuve's remarkable 5-year Formula One racing career. Villeneuve is remembered for his superb performance, winning six Formula One championship races; he is revered for his strength of character and indomitable spirit. Gilles Villeneuve is a Canadian legend and one of the greatest drivers of auto racing.
His F1 career started in 1977 in the team of McLaren, at the British Grand Prix, while from 1978 until 1982 he was part of Ferrari.
Unfortunately, he had died in a 225 km/h crash caused by a collision with the March of Jochen Mass during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder
At the time of his death, Villeneuve was extremely popular with fans and has since become an iconic figure in the history of the sport. His son, Jacques Villeneuve, became Formula One world champion in 1997 and, to date, the only Canadian to win the Formula One World Championship.

This unique 8-stamp sheet includes two images. One stamp ($0.90) depicts Villeneuve in the Ferrari 312-T3, the car in which he won his first Formula One victory, fittingly at the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.
The other stamp ($0.45) shows Villeneuve in the Ferrari 312-T4, which brought him his most single season wins.

And I know that if he was part of Formula One today, I would have liked him as a driver.

See where the other famous people or events are coming from today...I am sure that by clicking on the button below, you will be offered a lot of great things to read :)

Have a lovely Sunday!

The 75th Anniversary of Superman, Canada

In today's Sunday Stamps post, I'd like to ask you all a small favour. I usually don't do this, but sometimes life situations call for it and right now, all help is more than welcome...not to me, but to the people in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, who have been struck with one of the worst flooding disasters in more than a century. The images from there are heartbreaking. And right now these two countries need all the help they could get. The current situation is terrible, but its consequences are gonna be a real struggle as well.
I know that not everyone is able to donate money or goods, but sharing the news and making others aware about the actual situation is of great help as well and would mean a lot to me.
In the following Facebook links you can read more about it, follow the situation and see how you can donate if you want to.
https://www.facebook.com/HelpSaveBosnia?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/helpforserbia?fref=ts
http://revolution-news.com/call-help-worst-floods-bosnia-serbia-contact-info-vital-donations-supplies/

We may not be superheroes like Superman. Superman tried to save the world and help the people in need. But people can be superheroes in their own special way and help the ones in need!


And I have these two Superman covers, one containing the stamps, the other one the mini-sheet. Sent by one of my mailbox superheroes! And they just came in appropriate for today.

The stamps were issued to commemorate the 75th Superman Anniversary...one of my favourite childhood characters - with Christopher Reeve being my favourite Superman of all times! (never really read the comic books I must admit)

Since this is an 'anything you wish day' click on the button below to be surprised at the variety of thoughts and ideas for today's entries

Flowers of Slovenia, Slovenia

Flowers are indeed like omnipresent when it comes to stamps...but when you need to choose some to post, you realize you do not really have that many stamps featuring flowers...and from the ones you have, you try to choose something that has not been already posted or is unlikely to be posted...therefore I decided to go with this Slovenian mini-sheet issued on May 20, 1994!

The stamps themselves are nice...but the surrounding map image is what really makes this issue so dear to me (and i have to thank my mum again for having purchased this many years ago)

Well, the map is just to give you an idea where Slovenia is in case you hadnt already known...you can even take a glimpse of Macedonia at the bottom..cut in half...

as for the flowers...four of them are featured on these stamps.

the top left one shows the Primula carniolica or the Carniolan Primrose, which is considered as one of the most famous Slovenian plants, first spotted more than two hundred years ago.
The flower has glittering bright green basal leaves , which are smooth and bare and are not speckled with a farinose coating. The soft, red- violet flowers are in clusters, with a sprinkling of white dust at the mouth. It flowers in April and May in shady, damp gorges in rocky fissures and has been protected in Slovenia since 1922, and is also on the Slovenian Red List of threatened plant species.

next to it is the Hladnikia pastinacifolia, which is one of the most distinguished plants of the Slovenian flora. It has tripartite, denticulate and shining green leaves with whitish flowersin characteristic umbellate clusters. It is the representative of an independent genus, which has only one species (the great majority of genera have a number of species).
It was first noticed in the second decade of the nineteenth century, on Čaven, by the Slovene botanist, Franc Hladnik, the founder of the Ljubljana Botanical Garden (1810). As it can be seen, this new species was also named after him. Hladnikia grows on rocky meadows and cliffs, in a very restricted range of distribution. It also has found its place on the Slovenian Red List among rare plants.

The 60 SIT stamp shows the Daphne blagayana, the plant about which the Slovenian botanists have probably written the most. It is a species of plant in the genus Daphne and was discovered in 1837 near Polhov Gradec (now northeastern Slovenia) by Henrik Freyer and named after the botanist Rihard Blagaj (who after receiving the flower was the one to send it to Feyer). It has been determined that with time, this flower has been distributed the majority of the Balkan countries as well.

The last, 70 SIT stamp shows the Campanula zoysii, or the Zoi's Bellflower, which is endemic to Slovenia, Austria and northern Italy. It is considered a symbol of the Slovenian Alps, and called "the daughter of the Slovene mountains. The plant tends to grow low, reaching anywhere from 5 to 7 cm (2 to 3 in) in height, and is unique among its genus of bellflowers. The mouth of C. zoysii's bell-shaped flower narrows, ending in a five-pointed star, while the flowers of other Campanula species are likewise bell-shaped, but open.(The "pinched" shape of these flowers nonetheless manages to allow insects inside for pollination.) The flowers are arranged one to three for each stem.The plant's pale sky blue- to lavender-coloured flowers bloom in June over a three- to four-week period. Its leaves are crowded at the root, stalked, ovate and blunt; stem leaves are obovate, lance-shaped and linear.

My overall knowledge and understanding of flowers is quite terrible I must say, though that doesn't prevent me from admiring them. My favourite here.....hmm, probably Zoi's Bellflower...for some reason it reminds me of the hyacinth...and I am totally in love with those..

for those interested, the size of the minisheet is 136 x 115 mm
well, for more springy-kind-of-posts, click on the button bellow and enjoy this floral Sunday :)

Space Stamps, USSR

well, Sunday Stamps is a good opportunity to make a come back here as well after "raising the postcards' blog from the dead" first. And ever since I read the topic for today, the notion of USSR got stuck in my head, dont know why...after seeing the entries today I realized how narrow my thinking was, but simply, the thought of Russia or another former communist country, made me think of USSR and USSR only...and even with particular stamps in mind. In the end I thought I should maybe take a look at my Russian stamps too, but in the end I decided to go with my gut feeling and make myself happy and content...going with something else would have left this feeling of 'something missing' inside me and that's no good now, is it?

well, some of you know how hyped I get with EVERYTHING space related, so that's why I was also so anxious today to show a number of USSR stamps that are space related...plus I have never shown USSR stamps here before, so here is the first and I hope not the last time :)

I'll start with these two stamps issued in 1962...at first glance they may seem the same but actually there is a difference in colour at the right side...one is more on the violet tone, while the other one is something between bluish/greenish. These two depict the first manned flight to space, launched on April 12 1961 - and the stamps were issued one year later, to commemorate the one year anniversary.
Тhis set comes in the perforated version -an imperforated one can be obtained as well.

another set where the two stamps only differ in colour a bit. Issued in 1962 as well, representing Vostok 2, a Soviet space mission which carried cosmonaut Gherman Titov into orbit for a full day (or 25 hours to be more precise) on August 6, 1961 to study the effects of a more prolonged period of weightlessness on the human body. Perforated version.

Still in 1962, this time an imperforated version of a set of three stamps. These represent Vostok 3 and Vostok 4. Vostok 3 was a spaceflight of the Soviet space program intended to determine the ability of the human body to function in conditions of weightlessness and test the endurance of the Vostok 3KA spacecraft over longer flights. Cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev/Андриян Николаев (featured on the top right stamp) orbited the Earth 64 times over nearly four days in space, August 11–15, 1962. Vostok 4 was launched a day after Vostok 3, and this was the first time that more than one manned spacecraft were in orbit at the same time. Pavel Popovich (Па́вел Попо́вич)was on Vostok 4 (featured on the top left stamp)

Here is the lovely Sputnik, which was the first artificial Earth satellite, launched on October 4, 1957. The stamp commemorates its fifth anniversary.

and two more stamps from 1962, issued to commemorate all the Vostok Spaceflights, and in Russian you can read "Glory to the Conquerors of Space".

now, here is something from 1963..a fantastic se-tenant stamp if you are asking me! There is another single stamp in the set, but unfortunately I do not have that one. This is another issue to commemorate both Vostok flights going in the space together, Vostok 5 and Vostok 6.  A thing worth noting here is that Vostok 6 was the first human spaceflight mission to carry a woman into space, that is cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.

two stamps from a set of three issued in 1964 - yeah, i miss the third one and what really bothers me is that I'm missing the stamp Gagarin is featured on...sniff ;-( but one cant have it all...
anyway, this set was issued to commemorate the Cosmonautic day and here you can see the Sputniks on the first stamp and the Space station Mars 1 on the second one.

a great stamp from 1965, representing the first space walk, done by Alexey Leonov (Алексе́й Лео́нов) on March 18, 1965.

and just one more set for today, again from 1965, again three stamps issued to commemorate the Cosmonautic day, and here you have from left to right: a Soviet space achievements monument, then a Sputnik sculpture in Moscow and at the end K. E. Tsiolkovsky's monument (Константи́н Циолко́вский), who was a Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory.

well, that would be all...I know it got a bit lengthy but since they were all topic-related, I couldnt just pick one.
A big hug goes to my mum who has collected these over the years while she was really into it ❤

and now it's time to check out what others have come up with for this communist-countries day :)

have a lovely Sunday!