Though most of the western world is preparing for Halloween, most Finns celebrate this weekend also as Hallowmas (also known as All Saints day). Hallowmas tradition has two meanings: to honour all saints and to remember those passed over. Especially the latter has strong position in Finland, and most finns will visit graveyeards/ churches and light up candles in memory of lost loved ones this evening. Unlike Halloween it’s a quiet celebration.
I hate to say this, but it seems I have another sequel to “I hate when postal service ruins a philatelic item”[part 1, part 2] saga. This time Tristan from Canada sent me a cover with corgeous International Year of Astronomy miniature sheet on top – and quess what Canada Post did?
As some know, last week was autumn holiday in Finland. Like most finns (living outside the capital), I was travelling with my family. And it was a blast though the weather was quite chilly and it snowed on several days… Anyway, though vacations are nice, they also mean a lot of unresponded mail and chores expecting at home arrival. For the last few days I’ve been trying to handle “the mountain”… So please, be patient. I’ll get there slowly but surely 
. In the meantime, here are couple of interesting stamp related tidbits and some covers.
I’m always very happy to see stamps commemorating the green causes and enviromental issues. On september 9th the Malaysian post issued a set of stamps featuring energy-efficient buildings.
About a month ago I received a cover from Slovenia that made me very happy. Besides beautiful stamp on top, it contained a selection of nearly 40 different VF/F used Slovenian stamps. They did a fabulous addition to my Slovenian stamps collection.
I haven’t showed my incoming mail for a while besides some random items. Rest of this week I’ll be sharing these fabulous (mainly 2009) postage stamps with you.