124 – Season of Mist and Matanza

Autumn has blown in with a vengeance.  After a balmy October, the wind and the rains of November led to a rush to the wood suppliers, searching in bottom drawers for the warmer duvet, and random jabbing at the air-conditioning controls to work out how to change it to heating.

120 – Reddest, Greenest, Tastiest …

I’d heard it a million times.  Gardeners, exaggerating how marvellous their fruit and veg were.  Fisherman’s tales of everything being greener, bigger, rounder, smoother, and above all, so much BETTER than everything we poor mortals were buying.  Yawn.  Until my awakening.  Until that Damascene moment.  Until I ate the first tomato from my own plant.

106 – Jubilee Monday

Sometimes it’s easy to remember where you were on a certain date, what you were doing.  Kennedy’s assassination, Diana’s death, the twin towers – those big, shared experiences.  And some of the big royal occasions.  For a non-Royalist, how odd that big moments in my life seem to have been marked by the Queen’s jubilees.

79 – Driving Over Dreams of Lemons

First thing I did wrong was that I asked for un cafe nube doble en vaso.  My usual milky coffee.   Nope – I was in Orgiva in Granada province, now, so must remember to ask for una leche manchada doble en vaso.  La dueña was ancient, and widowed (guessing by the black widows’ weeds) and corrected me politely.

57 – Two Campos – a Contrast

Rural life in Shaftesbury, Dorset – the farming is milk, cheese and meat.  Rural life in Colmenar, Málaga – the farming is almonds, olives, lemons, oranges, sunflowers, avocados, and honey.