Yesterday was the solstice, the shortest day, and, officially, the first day of winter in the northern hemisphere.
When I get back to the village, maybe we’ll burn a yule log to encourage the sun to return.
Tag: trees
monkey see, monkey puzzle
A while back, there were a number of stories in the news of villages in the UK where they had decided to cut down old monkey puzzle trees because the needles were deemed to contravene health and safety regulations. (See here for one such story.)
I was glad, then, to see that the one in the village where my mother lives was still there when I walked down to buy a paper this morning:
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.
don't confuse the narrator 