pueblo – Page 3 – don't confuse the narrator

second post

This post dodges about a bit between the UK and Spain, so it’s probably not unreasonable that although I start off talking about the UK postal service, the lions in the picture are actually from the post office in Avila, Spain.

Back in the dim and distant past, you could post a letter in the morning at one end of the country and know it would be delivered at the other end of the country the next day. Indeed, I think that if you caught the early collection, or if it had to go a shorter distance, it would be delivered that same afternoon.
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autumn memories

Despite the glorious flowers still to be found in window boxes and tubs around the town, summer is officially over: the days have been getting shorter and Thursday was the Autumn Equinox.

I think all the local churches have either had their harvest festival or have it scheduled for tomorrow and the thought of harvest has reminded me once more of Spain. We didn’t pay much attention to the garden but even untended trees produce blossom and fruit as the year turns.
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poetry and prose

My poem El inquilino (the lodger) was a runner up in the MsLexia poetry competition this year and has just been published in the magazine. That should have made it easy to find something to write for the blog today, but although copies have already been delivered to subscribers, the terms of the publishing agreement mean that the poem can’t appear here – or anywhere else – until after the official publishing date of September 1st.

That said, the poem was inspired by the wildlife at the house en el pueblo when I lived in Spain, so here is a rather different account of “the lodger”, adapted from notes for the fictionalised memoir I eventually hope to write, which will be in the house-as-life-journey genre.
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star feature

It’s that time of year again, when the Earth passes through the tail of a comet and our skies light up with shooting stars. (They aren’t stars in the photo, of course; I don’t think they’re even moon daisies: but daytime weeds are a lot easier to photograph than the sky at night.)

In the village in Spain, you only had to step outside onto the lawn and look up, and there was the Milky Way speckle-splashed across the sky as if someone had flicked a paintbrush from one side of the valley to the other.
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spring again – again

It was a dull day in the park yesterday, but amid the grey there were a couple of brighter images: there were a few pools of daffodil yellow and the willows along by the river were gauzy with green, waiting for day or two of sunshine to turn them into a mass of caterpillar catkins.

There was also this magnificent flower which I think must be a Helleborus Orientalis hybrid, perhaps a Red Lady. I presume from the fact today is Palm Sunday it can be classified as a Lenten Rose:
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