Well, when September arrived, it made sure we knew about it. We went to bed as usual on the last night of August, but around 2.00 am we woke up to hear thunder grumbling around the hills. The room had a permanent flicker as though there was a fluorescent light tube about to fail. It was of course lightening which was just continuous. We got up and brought the dogs in because they hate thunder, and it is a good thing we did as it got louder and louder, and then the rain started. Not just a heavy shower, but coming down 'in stair rods'. Because our houses have no guttering, the water spouts from each corner of the roof and before long it was like being in the centre of a waterfall. The rain continued to fall until 9.30 the next day, which was quite good in a way. The ground was so dry that a short shower would have just run off the surface, but this kept going long enough to really soak everything. There was some localised flooding, particularly in Mojacar, but with our new drainage system, the village is fine. This has been followed by a week of cloudy days mixed with brilliant sunshine, and a few more showers, though nothing like the first night.
The clouds make the sky more interesting than it usually is, and I had to take a picture of this one. It was taken just before dusk, and once again it looks as though someone is watching me - and he's winking! (It's probably just me. I see faces everywhere!)
Having said just a couple of weeks ago, how very dry and barren the land is, suddenly everything has changed. I noticed today that even the grass that was golden and apparently dead, now has green stems again. You can see what I mean in the photo on the left. The one on the right shows the grass that has sprung up in just a week, around the orange trees next door. It always amazes me how seeds can lie dormant in the soil until the right thing comes along to wake them up again. Of course, there is a downside to the rain too. It has provided ideal conditions for all sorts of mosquitoes and other midges to hatch out, so once again I have more than my fair share of insect bites!
Something that didn't mind the long hot summer at all is this cacti. When we moved in, it was growing in the front garden, in a tiny strip of soil by the gate. It grew very fast and the dogs rubbed up against it when they went for a walk and I got it's horrid little spines in my skirts, and on my legs. So we decided to chop it down. We weren't keen to handle it much so Chris chopped through it at the base and I collected it up in layers of plastic bags and threw it over the back rail into the green zone. That was almost a year ago. But it refused to die, and this summer it has produced several new 'leaves', and looks quite green and bonny. So we have left it there as it is a part of our rear access security fence! The blue-green leaves behind it belong to one of the Century plants that I mentioned a post or two ago.
And while we are talking about the garden, we have a new addition to our little patch. We inherited a very poor lemon tree growing in a patch of ground opposite the kitchen door. The house owner told us it was dying and she was right. It did give up in the end and the patch has stood empty for a couple of years. So this morning we went to a local garden centre and bought a new baby lemon tree. We have planted it up in the same place, so it may or may not survive, but I shall talk to it every day, and hopefully one day it will produce some lemons for us. I have covered the soil with big stones, partly to stop the water from evaporating too fast, and partly to deter the dogs from digging it up! I have also put a coil of wire mesh around the trunk so the cats don't sharpen their claws on it. It's a wonder anything grows in our garden!
At my Wednesday sewing group, one of the ladies who comes regularly, is a wonderful quilter. She makes 'folk art' images on quilts and other household decorations and they are beautiful. This week she did a little workshop with us to make a Christmas decoration.
It is still warm enough for us to sit outside for our sessions, so here we are, all trying to put together a fabric fir cone. It was a bit fiddly but I think we all managed in the end. Here is the one I made. She has two more projects to do with us over the coming weeks so I am looking forward to those.
And finally here are the two pages for August, ready to go in my album for my 365 photo project. It was a fairly sleepy, uneventful month, but I still managed to find a picture for each day.
I have kept some of the photos quite small because, as usual, I have rambled on a bit! But don't forget you can just click on them to get a larger view.
