Friay Smiles# Week 26

I am writing this on Thursday evening as it has been too hot all day to do anything! I am still melting here but the fan is on at full speed so I expect I'll survive.

It was nice to see our Town Hall bedecked in a rainbow flag for Día Internacíonal.

The warmth and recent rain has brought a lot of wild flowers out and when I went outside the kitchen this week, out neighbour's yard look like a field of grass and daisies.

As you can see here, the white was not daisies, but these little white trumpets. They must be related to our common bindweed, but these are a ground cover 'weed' that grows prolifically around here. I think it looks so pretty.

A close relative to this is the slightly larger pink one. We have some just over the back railings and you see patches of it on all the road-sides, campo area and anywhere it can force its way through. Again I think it is very attractive. (They are actually a lot paler pink than this, but these were in the shade when I took the picture).

Growing in amongst the white ones is areas of this plant.

It is Echium Plantaginium. It is mainly this pretty purple-blue colour but some plants have pink and deep red flowers on them too. It has several medicinal purposes but is seen as a bit of a nuisance as well as it can be very invasive. It is not fussy what type of soil it grows in though it does like full sun. I tend to leave it alone as the hairy stems and leaves can irritate the skin and my skin doesn't need much to irritate it! But you don't get that many true blue flowers, and I like to see it growing everywhere it can find a bit of soil.

While I was sitting in a shady patch of the porch the other afternoon I heard the sound of heavy bells and I knew it meant there was a herd of goats nearby. Soon they appeared in the green zone behind our house, foraging for anything to eat. There used to be a lot of goats around, each herd with its own, usually elderly, goat herd and his dog, and he led his animals from one area of campo to another for hours on end. But I haven't seen any out and about probably since covid, so it was nice to see them back. The animals are very well cared for. They are so agile, often climbing half-way up a tree to strip the leaves at the top, and they are very obedient, reacting to the slightest command from the herdsman.

Their bells remind me of the cow bells on the mountain sides when I visited Switzerland many years ago. The back of our house is more shielded by growing almond and olive trees than it used to be, so I could only glimpse the animals through small gaps. 

It was a large herd; fifty or more animals, but it may have been two combined as there were two goatherds chatting together and one had a lovely sandy coloured dog. They came into the clearing behind us, and I managed to exchange a few words with them which I was pleased about. My Spanish must be improving a bit! They were upset by the amount of dead vegetation etc and said it was a danger for wild-fires, which I have to agree with, especially as there are a good few bottles laying around, left by the groups of yongsters who gather there during the summer. But we don't know who owns the land, only that it is a designated green zone so can't be built on, so there is not much we can do about it.

The pink bouganvillea that we planted just outside the back railings on the corner of the house, is looking splendid right now. I think it gets better every year. It is beginning to encroach on our bedroom window so we will prune it back once this lot of flowers have died down. 

Now, while it is at its best, it is lovely to see the true flowers opening. They are the tiny white flowers that form in the centre of each colourful bract, like little stars.  Pretty aren't they?

Tea-time is a bad time for me to go outside as it is when the biting bugs come out, so I have been dipping in the pool for a cool down around 5.00 and then sitting in the porch watching the swifts and house martins ducking and diving around us catching there fill of insects.

I did go out once it was properly dark and I took this photo of the half moon. 

I was also pleased to see our little row of solar lights are still functioning and making their patterns on the end walls. They have sat there untouched all winter. One is not working so well but the rest are looking good.

I was sitting here at my computer having a long video chat with Ben when when I spotted this cloud outside. It was big pile of fluffy white cloud, and one section of it was reflecting the setting sun. I had to make Ben wait while I took a quick photo. It is not perfect because I have netting covering my windows, but I got enough to catch the beauty of it.

Now I am going to prepare this to publish and link up with Annie's Friday Smiles in the morning. Tomorrow will not be such a smiley day as we say Good-bye to our lovely Kim at lunch time. But we won't allow ourselves to be too sad as we know he is struggling every day.

And so as not to end on a down note I will add a little meme I spoted this week. It is my cats down to a T and made me smile, so I hope it makes you smile too.