pueblo – Page 5 – don't confuse the narrator

summery

Well, I managed to miss the solstice sunrise, but it does look quite summery outside the window.

There again, my idea of what summer looks like has been changed by years of living in Spain.

Forgetting for a moment about the rain and the cold that is more often the reality, I think of British summer as pale and hazy, delicate and frilled, in pastel shades of strawberries and cream.

It’s honeysuckle, gypsophila and sweet peas; strappy sandals, pretty print frocks and matching cardigans.

In Spain, though, summer is brash and solid and in-your-face.
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visitors

This creature was buzzing outside my window this morning, investigating all the cracks and crannies that might give access to the space that the old blind used to roll up into.

Folklore says that if a bumble bee comes into the house it means you’re going to have a visitor. I don’t know what it means if a hornet comes into the house via the pelmet box. But perhaps I should be prepared for a lot of visitors with nasty stings.

feather brained

The village is running an ornithological photography competition.

mantis close-up of head and antennae. Probably Empusa pennata adult male

Sadly, although many birds visit the garden – blackbirds, hoopoes, azure-tailed magpies, jays, warblers, black caps, treecreepers… – not to mention the herons down by the river and the hawks and eagles who share our airspace, they all have a nasty habit of flying away before I can get my camera out, let alone focus it.

So unless I build a hide in the greenhouse and stalk what I think must be a pair of black redstarts who are nesting there, or set up the step ladder on the verandah and try and peer into the swallows’ neat adobe home, neither of which seem to be recommended courses of action, I don’t think I’ll be entering the competition.

I have, however, had a little more luck taking pictures of this marvellous creature with his spectacular feathered antennae. (Go on: click the photo and check him out close up!)
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light moments

white lilac — Morning lilacs loom
as bright as lightbulbs.

ivy leaves — Evening ivy drips
with sunlight

wild lupins — A lupin wildfire ravages the neighbour's field

narcissus

This picture was irresistible as it seems clear that each narciso (as they are called in Spanish) is enamoured of its own reflection.

Looking for an apt poetical quotation, I find that Sir Aubrey de Vere described the daffodil as “Love-star of the unbeloved March”.

Well, it’s certainly March, and the weather here is undoubtedly unlovely. (That flower bed is at least two inches deep in water at the moment, and it’s at the top of the garden; I dare not venture down to see if the trees in the orchard are knee deep, but I suspect they must be.)