Siss! Boom! Rah!

It rained last night! The first drops fell as the Pope was walking down the red carpet to catch his plane back to Rome after JMJ, or WYD, if you'd like that in English! (Also available in 12 other languages.).

However, it (the rain! the rain! Do keep up!) then held off for hours. The clouds gathered. The wind rose. And rose. Enough to blow the potted lemon tree over, so that I had to move it to a more sheltered position, and also secure everything that might take off and do some damage. The canopy on the terrace opposite was getting shredded, but our parasol got trashed a week ago, so at least I didn't have to worry about that!

Lightning crackled and flashed in the west and south west, and then moved steadily closer til it was right over head, and you couldn't see where it was, only that everything was flickering and snapping from grey twilight to charcoal to twilight and back again. Like being in an alley with a faulty streetlight.

And the thunder. Coo. Usually it grumbles and mutters, but last night was something else. Think of any thunder myth you like, and double it. Two raging titans slugging it out with everything they had. There can't be a stick of furniture left on Mt. Olympus.

The at 12.10 a.m. we got raiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!

I did sleep well.

Celestial cabaret

We invited some friends round towatch the sun go down. A nice, relaxing end to the week.

They arrived just in time for the lightning.

We decided to sit out and enjoy the show with our summer cocktails and Keef's home-made tortilla chips and salsa. The wind and light rain on our skin were such a relief after three days and nights of sultry heat (34º the night before, and not a breath of air moving, though we had every window and door open - I went and slept on the terrace.)

The lightning got more spectacular by the minute. The thunder kicked in after an hour or so, and then the wind really got going! It does get windy up here, so I've slashed the canopy of the parasol to prevent it from taking off and injuring a pedestrian four floors below. Two days ago, I lashed the whole contraption very firmly to the safety rail, and tied the spokes to the support, to be absolutely sure.

All we needed was a hurricane to test it...

So - summer evening with son y lumiere - and then it really started slinging it down, so we retreated. Of course, I put every houseplant that wasn't tied down out there for a raindance!

And this morning, gorgeous sky, cool air, and - hmm...

So the macrame worked, then.

And the plants are happy.

This might even stir the banana palm into action - all that loving care, and even the odd tropical storm to make it feel at home!

Come on out, little BP. We know you're in there...

Gawd it's 'ot!

Mid-to-high 30s.

Too hot for the hammock
(from fab indulgence shop TIGER, - Think IKEA round the corner, and without the furniture. Lots of practical, pleasurable, inexpensive Scandiwegian bits and bobs, like stripey hammocks (oh yes...!) and small, narrow-spouted, light-weight lime green plastic elephant-shaped watering cans........Yup. Got one of those, too.)
And the basil's not keen. Then again, the basil's always sulking about something: toomuchlight-no-notenoughlight-no-notenoughwater-NO!-TOOMUCHWATER!! If a herb could have a headache, basil would be prone to migraines.
Even the flat-leaved French Parsley, usually cheerfully stoic in the heat, is not enjoying this.

It's English cousin, tucked behind it, and shaded by the wall and the lemon tree, perseveres valiantly, putting up fuzzy green heads that soon go brown and crispy, then putting up some more. Shame, really. We bought it by mistake. Actually...

...Oh! I decided to go and bring the poor little thing inside, rather than leave it to struggle in hostile conditions, but it's looking quite perky - A ratio of 80:20 green:brown is a serious improvement! - so I've left it out there. I guess it's had its suntan experience. The English abroad... we settle down eventually.

I called an earlier blog Pots, Privacy & Peas: Paradise, but got so carried away with the outdoor pots, peas and paradise, that I forgot about Privacy. Up here, we are across the road from the neighbours' eyrie, and indoors, beyond the glazed-in balcony, we're at right angles to another neighbour, and across from a nightbird's bedroom. Which is all fine, except that it's high summer up here on the mesa, and clothes are just... too much, you know?

Now, we don't want to traumatise anyone, but neither do I want blinds and curtains, so the dappled shade I'm working towards outside translates into a dappled privacy screen indoors; a leafy, growing, mashrabiya or jali, which will let in light and air, and be beautiful to my eyes, while protecting those of that young chap opposite.

Geranium and scindapsus aureus and a climber - don't know what it is, but I've got two!

Here's the other one. I know they're popular. No sign of any flowers, but healthy, handsome and not too vigorous to block light and air. I wish I knew what they are... Anybody?

The ivy in the first pic and the pretty green vine are both artificial, but the real plants are growing through them, and the plastic tendril spirals make useful supports and guides for new plant tips heading for the ceiling. Love it.

And this is another reason for the artificial climbers: this is the bathroom window, permanently open to let light in and steam out. Those plant pots are strategically placed between the bathroom window and the neighbour's windows and balcony, but don't give quite enough cover yet. Anyway, I love that artificial vine: very pretty, very convincing, and fairly unlikely to go brown and crispy. It gets spray-misted with the real plants too (with my bright blue TIGER pulverizador!), so it doesn't get dusty either.

Living room, looking through to glazed-in balcony and beyond: Not great, but it's a start.

And the neighbours' view.

That will do for now.

Now this

- is a suede shoulder bag that I lusted after and pined for for months, as its assorted brown, red, blue, green and purple cousins - and probably its identical icosuplets (Ha!) got sold, and the price dropped from 63€ (Husband or handbag, husband or handbag, husband or handbag?) to 40-something (h-o-h...) to 20-something - Ooh! Ooh!! (Except I've already got seven handbags, and we haven't-got-space-for-any-more-STUFF!!! H-o-h...) to 15€. Ahh... All those months of unwavering devotion. I've been so good... And - and - ok!

So I used my beautiful tawny gold suede shoulder bag every day for three weeks, and was dismayed (a word I've never used before, but it's the only word for that childlike disbelief and disappointment that comes when something really special turns out to be - not. So. I was -) dismayed to see the colour dim and the suede darken as the filth of city air and public surfaces attached itself to the seams, the corners, and the sides. Oh dear... (Disconsolate's a good word too.) So, when it didn't respond to cleaner, and I couldn't find the right colour, I put it away. I'd maybe salvage the cleaner, brighter bits for a doll's coat...

Then we moved here, and I needed a shelf for a spider plant, but we hadn't got any shelves; or a hanging basket, but the plant was so big; or a wall-planter, but I couldn't find one; or - oh yeah! So I put the shoulder bag in the sink, and scrubbed it with soap and water. I really like that bag!

And so does the - Wait a minute, wait a minute. - Chlorophytum comosum! There! There was more of it this morning, but the baby ones are here. If they sprout roots like this geranium cutting (geranium masked by scindapsus cutting which does nothing but lurk), I shall be very happy. Green screen.

Not everything's flourishing

But we water, and encourage, and wait. Mind you, I'm not impressed with this compost. Wait til we get our composter.

P.S. New in happy-ever-after library: Alice Bowe's High-Impact, Low-Carbon Gardening, 1001 Ways to Garden Sustainably. I may not be able to pull off the natural swimming pond, but I'm quietly thrilled to have got my little mitts on a domestic how-to guide to practices I've seen applied to public buildings in Europe in recent years. (Of course, in Australia, Earth Garden's been pointing the way for years.)

Quote from the Preface,

We'll look carefully at the management of water and compost, the sustainable gardener's two most precious natural resources.

She gets my vote. And my money!

Rain on the Paseo de la Castellana 08.01.11

También la lluvia

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Paseo del Prado, Saturday morning




'Tres meses de invierno'

And it's still only September!

After the rain

I'm glad we moved the sofabed indoors yesterday because

Friday afternoon......................cricket

The turning of the year

Most of my life has followed the rhythms of the academic year, which has always meant a new beginning in September. In Dubai, we'd be back at work in the final days of August, but the kids didn't come back til September, and that was what mattered.


I remember being in England one summer, as August rolled into September, staying I think with my brother and his family when they lived near Walthamstow Marshes in London. The summer leaf fall was just changing into something different: the air cooler, the sky paler, and the trees brightening up for their final fling before winter. London in early Autumn - gorgeous. I hated leaving at that precise all-to-come moment, even though back in Dubai it would soon be the long soothing growing season, all greenery and flowers, and days when you could walk and sit out, and sociable evenings with friends.


Here, my academic year runs from October to late June, and I elected to teach July and August Summer courses and have September off this year: to go WWOOFing certainly, but also simply for the pleasure of having time to enjoy the gentler weather. Spain is big enough to have three distinct climates: Mediterranean along the south and east coasts, Atlantic up north, and Continental here in the middle. Here within the protective environs of the city, I can't seriously say we've had the proverbial "tres meses de invierno y nueve de infierno" (three months of winter and nine months of hell) this year, but though winter was mild (after a frighteningly cold November) and we only had two weeks of 40C right at the start of August, it's still too hot for me, and I've spent almost as much time indoors wilting as I did in Dubai: not what I returned to Europe for!



Oh, but the terrace....... all the summer evenings, and nights, and early mornings up here with the sky, the greenery (and whitery and reddery and bluery and yellery) and some protection from the noise of the .22/7 joy-of-living party down in the square...... For some, play finishes shortly after 7.30, or 8.30. I'm not jealous - more bemused.

For others, work started in time for them to deliver newspapers to the kiosk at 6, and fruit and veg to half the barrio from 7. Definitely not jealous......

........but summer's nearly over, and my terrace nights are numbered - 3, 2, 1, to be precise, before I head off for a fortnight.

While I was one of the few people who was still able to sleep most nights once summer kicked in in late June (very late June), up here with a sheet and any hint of breeze that could be bothered to stir; in the last couple of weeks it's been summer pyjamas, then a duvet for the small hours, then winter pyjamas and a duvet all night; and a week ago I woke up because my hands and feet felt like blocks of ice! I definitely ain't doing this in the last week of the month!

Also, we have a new neighbour, so it's time to come inside!

While Hurricane Gustav has been doing its worst in the American South, and Dad says its been blowing a gale in northern England (Could I hear it when we were talking on Skype the other day?) it's also been gusting up here. Is it possible for it to be windy everywhere at once? I notice because - well - the willow flails , the canopy flaps, everything rattles and I'm not looking forward to having something come down on my head - and because there's a whopping great crane swinging about, mounted in the next street where they're building a new mercado, and there's a man up there in that little tin box......

The clouds have been moving in as well. At first there were just a few bits of fluff on the morning horizon, that turned into dirty reddish curds when the sun poked them, then disappeared in a huff for the rest of the day. But every day there are more, massing in layers and swathes and heaps of grey and white and purple, and all the in-between colours that clouds do so well. This morning, everything behind me was gilded and rosy, but opposite, where the sun was supposed to be putting in an appearance, there was only a streak of molten red peering out from under a thick wad of grey.

The days are cooler - they must be, given that we're now watering every two days instead of twice a day - something you notice when you've got four 5L plastic bottles, and two of 2L, and it usually takes a complete set, carried from bathroom to terrace, twice, to keep everything in the garden lovely. Of course it was worth it (except for the sodding prima donna tomatoes!). But I don't think we'll be sorry to lose that little routine for a while! Wherever we eventually settle, the availability and proper management of water is going to be paramount.

In the meantime, we're advised that it will rain tomorrow, and I believe it.

So, we've done all right in our first year here,

but it would be really nice if I could work out where I go wrong with herbs........



I'm feeling quite melancholy. I don't know why. Probably because change is coming - a whole new set of students, classes and colleagues in a few weeks; a new and bigger flat in a few months - and as the years go by, I find I am less and less enthusiastic about change, even when I know it's for the better.


I expect a need a holiday, and some dirt under my fingernails.