Not all the local flora is as reminiscent of my childhood as yesterday’s plane trees. This, the madroño, (arbutus unedo), is called a strawberry tree in English, and, although it’s been introduced elsewhere as an ornamental shrub, the only part of the British Isles where it’s native is Ireland.
I find it very strange – though in some ways, quite comforting – that one of the most popular trees in public gardens and plazas in this part of Spain is what I thought was a London plane. Perhaps even more strange is the fact that the Latin name is Platanus x hispanica. Why should a London plane be “hispanica“? Not to mention the questions arising concerning their relationship to plátanos, which is Spanish for bananas.
The village is celebrating its jornadas micológicas this weekend, which means that the local restaurants are offering all sorts of weird and wonderful fungal specialities. I don’t expect to be indulging, having had a bad reaction a couple of years ago.
Instead, I have been out observing the hongos on the lawn. Although the weather is beginning to be autumnal and the fog was so thick this morning that I thought we’d lost the orchard, we had more mushrooms last weekend, I think. Certainly more variety.
Continue reading “days of damp and mushrooms”
I said the next post would be more about poetry, but if it is, this page is going to begin to be very boringly text-heavy. So here’s a quick seasonal picture to brighten it up:
We went to Mombeltrán for lunch the other day and I stopped to snap a picture of the “autumn colours” on the local mountains.
We hadn’t been that way for a few months, and it was shocking to think that the fire this summer had come that close to the town and destroyed so many of the pines.
Continue reading “…as the year grows old”
don't confuse the narrator 