It seems awfully late in the season, but we still have lots of insects about. As soon as the sun comes out, the ivy is busy with honey bees and wasps, and I found this green bug-eyed monster on the verandah earlier on today:
Tag: pueblo
autumn strawberries
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.
plane speaking
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.
days of damp and mushrooms
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”
siempre incendiada
The town motto of Arenas de San Pedro is siempre incendiada, y siempre fiel (“always aflame and always faithful”). The coat of arms is a picture of the castle in flames, surprisingly reminiscent of card sixteen – the Tower – in many tarot decks.
The fireworks at the Arenas fiestas are always set off from inside the castle, which provides a lovely backdrop and such wonderfully appropriate images as this:
(This time the pink hues are not due to problems with my camera.)
don't confuse the narrator 