Fiestas and Flowers

Hi. Once again I have left it a whole week before blogging, so I have too many topics to tell you about. After that long missive last week I was determined to do entires more often so they would be shorter. But I have just realised that I haven't even covered last Saturday's mini-fiesta yet. It was San Isidro's Day, and as he is the patron saint of 'workers on the land' and the second saint of Los Gallardos, there was, of course, a good reason to have a fiesta. As this is the second time we have been to this fiesta, and the format seems to be the same each year, I won't go into too much detail here. It was a lovely day and we went up to the little church at the top of the village at 11.30 and sat in the back for the mass. The singing was done by the village choir and it was beautiful. I tried to record some on my phone so I could give you a taster here, but it seems that now I have had my English phone unlocked to take a Spanish pay-as-you-go card, the extra features on it, such as the camera, are locked. So the video is still on my phone, but I am unable to load it onto the computer to share. After the mass, we all joined a small procession of local horsemen There was only one last year, but this year there were quite few. They had beautiful animals. One was white and she had a little brown foal with her. They were followed by a small cart pulled by two shiny black, stocky little ponies, and then the cart carrying the statue of San Isidro. It was decorated with palm branches and flowers, and was pulled by an old grey mule. Most of the choir followed along. Last year they all wore flamenco-style dresses in bright red with white spots, but this time they each wore a different colour and looked very bright and gay all together. We joined the group of villagers bringing up the end of the procession and went on what is know as a 'romeria', which means a walk and/or picnic in the country. We only walked as far as the sports centre at the top of the village, just on the other side of the motorway. There we watched the final of the inter-Los Gallardos football league, and then went to talk to the horses. The two little ponies spent hours running round and round the pitches, giving cart rides to all the children. Many families had taken their own picnic with them, but there was also a 'Grand paella', free to anyone who wanted it. I went up to watch it being cooked and one of the men handed me the long ladle and invited me to give it a stir. Later we got to eat some, and very nice it was too! We walked back home for a rest in the shade after lunch. That night there was music and dancing at the end of our road. We went up at midnight, just as it was geting going (!) and we stayed until 2.00am, and then we went home to bed, but the music was still going when we got up at 7.00 the next morning to take the dogs out. I don't know how many people last the whole night. When I had my hair cut this week, I asked my little hairdresser if she did, but she said, she only stayed until 4.00 but her sister stayed all night.

Here are another couple of flowers to show you. The first is of course morning glory, and how well its name suits it. Isn't it just glorious? Every morning there is a new crop of these flowers all over the fence across the road from us. I pulled off a long trailing stem and stuck it in a pot to see if it will take. I'd like some of that on our fence. Out in Thailand, morning glory was a very popular starter in many restaurants. It appeared to be a mound of the leaves and vines, just steamed, but we didn't try it. They didn't, as far as I know, eat the flowers. I'd rather look at them anyway! The second picture is the flower of the prickly pear. Most people associate them with the cartoon of jungle book, and consider the fruit to be of little use, but they grow everywhere here, and the fruit are sold in the market. An old man in Cyprus showed me how to tackle one without geting a hand full of thorns, but I don't remember how it's done. They have these beautiful flowers on but they only last for a day. This one is at the bottom of the orange grove next door, and I just happened to notice the flowers were out as I was hanging out my washing, so I took a quick snap. They had mostly gone again by the evening. Here they are commonly know as 'chumba' and are not very popular too close to houses as they are thought to attract mice, and possibly rats.

And speaking of unwanted visitors near the houses, here is one that was foolish enough to stray onto our patio yesterday. He was a good four inches long and facinating to watch. He wriggled along at a fair old rate, curled and uncurled himself, and was just as efficient moving forwards or backwards. I am wary of anything yellow and black, (the biology teacher I used to work for told me those colours were a warning to birds to leave them alone), so I took a few photos and then we swept him away. I looked it up on the web and it turned out to be a Megarian banded centipede 'which packs a powerful and potent sting in its front feelers'. So I'm glad I resisted the urge to touch it. It said they can be from 10-20 centimeters long so this was a fairly small one, and I gather they are fairly common in Andalucia. If he has any sense he won't come back, because I might not be so kind to him next time.

The Wonder of Creation

I can't believe it is a whole week since my last blog. Where does the time go? I'm afraid I am going to plague you with more pictures of flowers and wild life. I get so much enjoyment watching the changes all around me, and I just want to share my enthusiasm, in the hope that at least one of my readers is equally excited by it. So first, here are a couple of shots taken on the campo. Every patch of open land is covered right now by dying, common thistles. They were very pretty for a while, with simple pale lilac-blue flowers, but now they are fading almost to grey, and their drying thorns can be very lethal!! However a new group of thistles have now arrived. First it was a small but much deeper purple one, not overly significant, but very pretty. Then I saw that from among the dying pale ones, there were a few plants shooting up much taller, easily as tall as me, and they had much bigger buds on them. I was very surprised when they opened to reveal not purple, but bright yellow flowers. I didn't know that thistles were ever anything except shades of mauve to purple. Then there was suddenly some big bushes of what also looked like thistles, but these were shorter with huge buds forming, so I have watched them with interest and today I was rewarded with the sight of these beautiful flowers. They all seem to have bloomed together. Just look at this lovely plant. The flower in the photo I am using for a close up has three beetles visiting it. Two are burrowing deep inside, and one, with a pollen stained back, is at the base of the flower. We are having to find alternative routes to walk the dogs this month as a nature patrol man is riding around on a quad bike and keeping all dogs off the campo while there are ground nesting birds there. That's fair enough so we are doing our best to comply, and presumably we will be allowed back on in a few weeeks. So walking down a different track this morning I spotted what I thought was a clutch of hairy caterpillars. I approached with caution because there are one or two types out here that can cause quite a violent allergic reaction, so violent that dogs have been known to die from it. But I soon realised that these weren't caterpillars at all. They were, in fact, the seeds of a plant that grows and spreads very close to the ground. I've inserted a close up of one of them. Aren't they lovely? Then, finally, as I was walking the dogs back to the car, I passed a small ornamental lake at the edge of the housing, and just as we got there, a white heron landed on the shore. What better way to end a nature walk with my furry friends.

But my nature watching doesn't end on the campo. There is plenty to see in and around the garden. The other day this rather fine fellow came to visit us, and Chris called me out with the words 'You'd better bring your camera'. He knows me so well! The hopper was about three inches long and he sat on our potted palm for ages before moving to the roses. We went out soon after, and we think he may have came to a sticky end. Some vaguely familiar remains were found in the dogs bed later that day! Even more exciting is what you see here. The green area behind the house is full of little birds and we love watching them bring food for their young who live in the tiniest holes in the eaves of the house next door. But up til now they haven't been too close to us, because of the animals. But just lately the sparrows and occasionally the swifts, have popped down for drinks of fresh water from the base of our plant pots. They will drink from the pools when they are thirsty enough, but of course they prefer their water unchlorinated. Anyway, the other day Chris noticed a nest squashed into the tiny space betrween the air-conditioning unit and the house wall. We thought it was an old one, but this week there is a continuous call of baby birds and mum and dad sparrow are in and out with food. I sat still (well as still as I am capable of) for quite a while in the hope of getting a picture of mum feeding the babies, but when she had surveyed us from the roof tiles for ages, and chattered to her partner about us, and she finally decided it was safe to go to the nest, she disappeared right inside it, with not so much as a little beak or a tail feather to see, but as soon as she went in the nest, dad came and sat guard on the pipes, so here is the best shot I could get.

My new little garden is looking good. There was one ornamental cactus in the front corner, that the dogs just would not leave alone. It must have had the right smell, or sweet sap or something, because in a few days it was wrecked. So I rescued it and potted it up in the front garden to see whether it will revive for next year, and I replaced it in the garden with a yellow osteospermen, which is doing fine. But the plant that we are most pleased with is the bottle brush tree round in the front yard. It was almost dead when we moved in. Derek had been too ill to care properly for the plants all autumn, and then the house was empty for a few weeks, and the patio tubs soon dry out if they are neglected. So we trimmed out all the dead branches and watered it regulalry all through the winter and spring, and now it has lots of bright red brushes on it. It is looking really good. Amazing what a bit of TLC can do, even for a plant.

At this time of year I enjoy sitting out in the garden, because it is not too hot, and even on really sunny days the shade is comfortable. So after lunch I either read for an hour or two, do some cross-stitch sewing, or make my lace. However, I really need the right chair for this. The two loungers that we inherited with the house, are too low and not at all comfortable. Chris is quite happy with them because he likes to lie flat to sunbathe for his siesta, whereas that just makes my back really ache. What I wanted is a proper height seat, with a detachable foot rest that can be used while the chair is upright, and a back that can recline independently when I need to change position, or relax for a while. I am really cross because we had six of these in England, two with a foot rest and four without, and we left them at the house as we thought we would replace them very easily out here. Instead we find that they just don't exist here. All the recliners and beds are very low, and the loungers have a footrest that only comes up when the chair is reclined. I had just decided that we would have to bite the bullet and pay silly money to have one sent out from UK, but when I looked on the sites like, Argos, Wilko's, Tesco, and several garden furniture companies, I found that they don't have them in England now either. There are some without foot rests, but I really need to put my feet up to sit comfortably, especially in the heat. The nearest is the 'steamer' chairs, which again are very low, and in my experience, not very comfortable. So for now I have to accept that I can't have one, and while we were out shopping yesterday we saw this lounger in a shop, and Chris bought it for me. I can sit upright in it, and it is comfortable. It is a sunbed really, and the long foot rest section makes it awkward to get right on to to sit up, and also to get off again, but I am grateful to have something where I can put my feet up and enjoy the early summer weather.

And finally I must show you our friend, the traffic signal man. Isn't he wonderful? To copy my own quote on facebook, "Who needs traffic lights when you can have an automated man doing semaphore with flags". I think he's a brilliant idea. You can't fail to see him as he stands waving to warn everyone to slow down, when there are roadworks just around the next bend. He was very effective on our main coastal road this week. He was a bit poorly one day when his batteries were low, but he soon perked up again, and then he hitched a lift from on a worker's lorry, and set up camp a bit further down the road. He's effective and saves on manpower. I bet the bored roadworkers who stand waving everyone down to warn of roadworks back home, would like to have an automated replacement now and then.

And finally, finally, here is a view that I took from the top of the campo, looking towards our beautiful mountains. I am including it here, because the cluster of terracotta houses you can see quite low down, is the start of Cortijo Grande where we went for our drive last week. I am sure you can imagine how good the scenery is as you go up there. Looking at this photo I was struck by how green everywhere is still. I am sure it was already dying off and turning brown in May last year. I think we just had so much more rain than usual this winter, and the bad weather lasted much longer, so all the plants have more stamina this year, and it is still looking good.