Lessons learned, and a few more bugs!

I always say that we are never too old to learn something new, so here are a couple of things I have learned. The first one was not that recent. Just before we moved out to Spain, when we had finally sold our house in UK and were rootless, we had the wonderful experience of spending three months backpacking around Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. Now as a child I had, several times, watched my sister-in-law Pam (from Burma) showing my mum how to prepare a fresh pineapple, but whenever I tried, I made an aweful mess, and by the time I had dug out all the prickly bits that hide the seeds, there was very little fruit left to eat. But when we were in Thailand, Chris and I often bought fresh fruit from street vendors, and pineapple was our favourite. Little old ladies pushed handcarts around the streets carrying glass cabinets filled with ice, and halved pineapples, mangoes, papaya, and water melon, and for a few pence they cut it up into a plastic bag and gave you a wooden 'pick' to eat it with. Delicious!! At the end of the road, along from our guesthouse in Bangkok, an old man stood every morning with a wooden board and a sharp knife, just preparing pineapples, and I stood and watched him for hours, facinated by the ease with which he made such clean and juicy slices. I even videoed him so I would remember what he did. I don't buy pineapples very often now as after such lovely ones, the ones we could buy in England were a disappointment, and I haven't seen them much over here. But this week, when I was in Garrucha market, I saw some lovely ones and decided to treat us. Then yesterday I got out my board and sharpest knife and did my best to remember the lesson from Thailand. I think I did rather well. After lunch, Chris and I sat down with a few slices each and as we bit into them, we looked at one another and said in unison 'Thailand!' It took us both straight back there, and incidently, the pineapple was gorgeous.

More recently, at the end of April I signed up for an online course on colouring! Now you might think that after 60 odd years of colouring in, there can't be much more to learn, but although I love my crafting I have never been an artist. At grammar school I was nearly thrown out of art lessons. I think it was my first experience of not doing well at something, so I made up my mind that I didn't like it, and became a thorough nuisance in class. Then one teacher gave me a block of clay instead of paint and I settled down enough to finish my time there. But I am still frustrated when I can't make a picture look how I see it in my mind, and I thought these classes might help. When I won a national ATC competition a couple of years ago, I spent my prize money on a lovely set of quality coloured pencils so I thought it was about time I learned to use them properly. I belong to a group of crafters called The Chocolate Baroque Guild, and the owner of this company, Glenda Waterworth, provides these lessons through an American company called My Creative Classroom. Each week we get a downloadable tutorial and a set of six videos demonstrating a technique. Then we are given assignments to try for ourselves. For the second week we were shown first how to turn a flat empty circle into a sphere by careful shading and the adding of a shadow, and then we moved on to colouring a flower to make it look 3D, and hence more 'real'. So I thought I would show you my first attempt which was to colour the moning glory provided on the assignment sheet, as I was quite pleased with mine. I went on to do the same with a poppy to make a card for a family member this week. I think I am safe to put it on here as she does not follow my blog, so here it is.

On a very different topic I wanted to show you some bugs which are very common, but these had a 'twist'. Over Easter, while England was enjoying some much needed sunshine, we had a couple of very wet days. I was out in the garden, making sure none of my plant pots were being drowned by the water spouting from corners of the roof, when I saw these snails. They are more like something you would expect to see on the beach, than in the garden. What's more, they had all appeared on the most unfriendly plant in the whole garden. The spines on this cactus are vicious, but the snails had crawled between them and seemed quite happy there. I won't touch the plant so I found a stick and picked them out. A cactus of that size would cost at least 50€ to buy, and I didn't want ours spoiled by snail trails or nibbled holes.

Yesterday was different altogether, very hot with bright sunshine. As I was going out to the shops I saw this bug fly past me and settle on our rose bush. On closer inspection I saw it was a ladybird, complete with black spots, but instead of the rounded body we are used to seeing, this one was almost a rectangle. She was quite welcome in the garden as her larva will eat the green and blackfly that sometimes infest the roses. When I fed the dogs tonight, I was standing at our back fence, waiting for them to finish eating, when I noticed some more on a plant just below me. This is the mimosa tree that grew so fast last year, and Chris cut down in the autumn because it is right outside my room and its flowers give me hayfever. Already it is growing well and no doubt he will have to tackle it again this autumn. I suddenly realised that the whole plant was heaving with these ladybirds. If you click on it to enlarge it, you can see several in this small shot. They may be a new lot of larva that have all just emerged from their cocoons, or just adults about to breed, but there are certainly plenty of them. The swifts are darting around there catching bugs so I don't know how many will survive, but I'm sure some will.

Enjoying God's wonderful creation

Today dawned bright and sunny so I suggested to Chris that we go for a drive and a walk out in the countryside, before all the wild flowers disappear in the hot sun. So mid-morning we drove up to Cortijo Grande. We parked near the golf course and spent a while just enjoying the view of shadowed valleys and distant mountains. I have made a small panoramic picture of part of the view. It is not very good, but the best I could do with the photos I took.

The trees were lovely. We are not very high there but the trees are quite different from the ones around the village. They are almost like English ones, with tall trunks and delicate branches and leaves that filter the sun through, and make roosts for the many birds that are around. We could hear several distinct calls but I am not sufficiently expert to identify them. One bonus was when a bright, canary-yellow bird swooped across the valley in front of me. It was too fast for me to catch on camera, but I saw it clearly and it was much brighter and more yellow than any bird I have seen here so far. I have looked on the internet and the only bird that fitted the description, indigeonous to this region, is the Iberian yellow wagtail, so I think that must be what it was. I did manage to get pictures of a couple of other birds. This glossy blue-black back belongs to one of the many swallows that were dipping and diving around us, and the two birds are spotless starlings, similar to the starlings seen in UK, but slightly larger and without the speckled feathers. They were very vocal, and we sat and watched groups of them digging holes all over the golfing greens, and enjoying whatever it was they were finding to eat there.

As we walked around the golf course we saw quite a lot of flowers still blooming, including this deep blue one, which shone out through the tall grass, calling us to go and admire it! There were also plants that were once cultivated but had returned to the wild like this beautiful morning glory scrambling over a rotting fence post. Between the driving ranges there were small areas of orange trees which were semi-wild and they were covered in fruit still. I tried one, half expecting it to be bitter, but it was quite sweet, though without much flavour. Some of the trees had died and I was amused to see they had been colonised by the usual white snails that abound everywhere. We saw lots of loquat (Chinese plum) trees with ripening fruit on. I bought some last year to try but was not very impressed. We went to our favourite bar up there for a drink after our walk, and sat in the garden, amongst this beautiful array of vivid geraniums. They survive outside all winter here, so over the years they get quite big, almost like small bushes, and they flower abundantly for months.

On our way back home I took Chris to see some truly beautiful birds. Followers of this blog since it began, may remember that I have often spoken of wanting to see the bee-eaters that visit this region to breed around April through 'til June. A friend of mine took some quite stunning photos of them last week, and though I can't compete with that, I did ask them where they were taken and they kindly whispered the location of their breeding ground to me. I went to see them and sat in the car for ages watching them swoop to and fro between the over head cables, and occasionally coming down to the trees along the road. I wanted to take Chris there to see them because now they need to be left in peace to rear their families. They nest in sandy banks and you can see here all the holes where they burrow into the mud at the side of the road. I would love to have a telephoto lens and sit taking pictures of them, but I tried with my little point-and-shoot camera. It doesn't have a very powerful zoom, and when it is in use, it picks up every wobble of my hands, so there was never much chance of me getting a good picture! But when I got home I enlarged the pictures I had taken and this is the best one which I am putting on here so that you can see the the lovely colours on these birds. To see such exotic creatures in their natural habitat is a real privilege, and I am so glad I have at last had an opportunity to do so.

I took quite a few photos this morning so I will put a folder of them on my gallery which you can see by clicking here.