Goin’ Back

We left rainy England in February and flew off to Tenerife - yay! Our first visit since February 2020 (immediately prior to Covid lockdown).

Look at Mount Teide rising above the clouds to greet us

We had a 5th floor apartment this time which gave us a great view for nosing over the apartments, pool and bar …

and over the rooftops to the sea and a big sky. We saw a couple of fabulous rainbows and a few starry nights, but missed the lunar eclipse.

When the clouds dispersed the temperature rose by about 5 degrees to the low 20s. We even went in the pool, though it turns out post-stroke swimming was a more traumatic experience than we’d expected - luckily post-stroke lounging is fine. There were quite a few rainy days, more than expected but some of the downpours were spectacular.

The plants were loving it. This bush was so beautiful in one of the parks with the Sun on it - Croton apparently.

And these yellow delights along the sea front - some sort of day lillies.

There are several flowered trees which stand out as they’re so stunning but the jacaranda mimosiflora is one of my favourites even before the most beautiful lilac flowers appear in the Summer. The foliage and huge seed pods create such a decorative canopy.

The nearby barranco actually had water pouring through like a river on a couple of days and the plant growth there is fabulous, with tree versions of what we consider houseplants - palms, umbrella plant and rubber trees. And the ever-present bougainvillea, such a gorgeous splash of colour.

The weather produced some huge waves which we could hear crashing against the rocks from our apartment. The red flags were out and even the surfers didn’t risk it. The little red crabs were clinging to the rocks for dear life.

We even saw a few land snails, a bit different from our common snails. I don’t think we’ve seen them in Tenerife before but perhaps they felt safe to roam because the only lizards we saw were tiny ones.

We saw and heard a lot of local birds including the African blue tit, Island Canary and parakeets. And we saw the swifts arrive - these are likely making their way up past Africa to Northern Europe, so maybe they’ll appear over the allotment soon! All too fast to photograph so here’s a pigeon showing off fancy feet with painted nails 😃

It was a different holiday from our usual - no bus rides to visit other towns and no long hikes but we walked into Puerto de la Cruz most days to shop, people-watch and enjoy coffee and cakes. We also ate ant our favourite vegetarian cafe, El Limon, so pleased to see they’re still open.

The thing about Casablanca Apartments is that they’re on a steep hill, so any direction we walk includes steps - soo many steps …

Or slopes - some very steep ones! We bought Jamie hiking sticks, which helped a lot, but we still had to resort to a taxi up the hill one day - it was worth it!

Most evenings we enjoyed on our balcony (I had to buy a jumper!), entertainment in the bar or in the games room. 

Is it mean to say that Jamie’s stroke has levelled the playing field a bit for pool games? I lose a few less now🤭 And I won first place in the car racing game (just in case he’s reading this 🏆)

Suffice to say we had a lovely break from the monotony of February. 

We returned home to fog but see more signs to encourage us to think of Spring and I seem to have brought quite a bit of food back home to keep the holiday dream alive. Mmm, cactus jam and Rooibos tea - yum!

Oh, and did I mention? We’re going back in June - well, as we’re both retired.. and hopefully see a bit more sunshine. Better get working on that allotment next week!

Song title provided by Carole King.

Heatwave

It's the 1st August today so I'll be logging back into work a little later after a gloriously relaxing break - and when it's hot and sunny in England who needs to travel further than their allotment? 😌

Most days were spent on the allotment, with morning and afternoon visits. It's been extremely hot, with temperatures hitting 30° at least a couple of days. We've enjoyed various picnics including hot dogs ..

And a Cornish cream tea...

We've spent some lovely time with friends popping by.

Our plots are slowly growing, but there's so much bare soil compared to previous years. I hope there's enough Summer left to produce something for us to eat..!

Harvests are sparse - we're still waiting for our first courgette - but there are plenty of salad leaves, radish and flowers to create colourful lunches.

I did the Butterfly Count on 30th July - the sunny weather has certainly increased the fluttering and buzzing:
2 x Meadow Browns
4 x Large Whites
1 x Marbled White
1 x Red Admiral
1 x Holly Blue
1 x Brimstone
Of course, most of them refused to pose, but here's a red admiral and a meadow brown - I would have seen more if I'd moved to the Wildlife Plot or the meadow at the top of site, but, well, I was on holiday 😉

We've greatly enjoyed watching the swallows darting across site practising their manoeuvres. They're gathering on the wires and when they all launch together it's fabulous - impossible for me to photograph.

Another entirely different enjoyment was the deafening roar of the B52 bomber which passed overhead on its way back from the Fairford Air Show - amazing. And the two F16 fighter jets that circled a couple of times - the noise was fantastic (in peacetime).

We did have one day trip - to see an established wetland reserve after our visit to Hungerford's planned site. We went to Jones's Mill in Pewsey to the Vera Jeans Nature Reserve. 

It wasn't a sunny day but no rain. Walking on the boardwalks we saw lizards and the giant horsetail was amazing to see - ours on the allotment is puny in comparison! It was a lovely place to walk and I look forward to having a similar site minutes away from our flat!

So now I had better get ready for work and it's just rained, perhaps we'll get a thunderstorm later.. The song is provided by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas - singalong, the sun will be back later 🌞

Blue Monday

Aah, the sky was blue this morning and the sun was shining - that made a welcome change. There are many fewer planes flying nowadays but the contrails were in full view this morning which shows the air was cold up there, but not so cold at ground level as it has been recently.

I was looking forward to being outside after pretty much sitting still all week inside. We drove to the allotment and were the only people on site for a while. I weeded the garlic in the raised bed.

Jamie took the covers off the broad beans and weeded that area and I dug the area behind, though I didn’t manage it all. It was nice to be outside and digging. Several of our plot neighbours arrived but we were all well socially distanced. We were pleased to hear that Ivan has had his first COVID-19 vaccination - I’m expecting mine in February if all goes to plan.

Jamie cleared the rhubarb and surrounded the huge plant with a ring of manure to give it a boost after it was left to its own devices last year. We really need to divide the plant later in the year.

The larger birds were active today mostly gulls from over the Marsh, magpies and buzzards being quite noisy overhead. We saw a couple of robins but they weren’t as busy or inquisitive as they usually are.

We left as the sunshine had gone and it started to get chilly. We’re expecting a lot of rain this week. The plot was already very wet. So the question is... do I read a book or carry on practising crochet before I embark on extending the sleeves of my beautiful cardigan..? Or maybe I’ll make some onion soup as Ivan gave us these lovely veg as we left the site. The onion is huge, it weighs 472grams!

The song is by New Order - I used to hate this song, but quite like it now. Tomorrow is known as ‘blue Monday’, but try not to feel blue - we’re moving closer to Spring and vaccination so it’s best to stay positive. Take care and stay safe x

Ça plane pour moi

We had a visit to the plot yesterday, mostly to pick some tomatoes. It was such a warm day that we stayed a bit longer to chat and were glad we did as suddenly there was an air show going on overhead

It was rather fun watching the sky with fellow plotholders and seeing all those bi-planes. And then there were parachutists with red smoke and also apparently wing-walkers - amazing! It was a shame I only had my little camera with me.

And, as if that wasn't excitement enough for one weekend - a frog has moved into our pond!

I took the mesh cover off it last week as I cleared some of the duckweed (it all grew back) and obviously froggy liked the look of it.

Today Jamie and I got on with working - no aerobatics to entertain us today, but the frog's still there. We did a lot of clearing, weeding and edging.

The carrot bed and sprouts plot - look how dry the earth is!

The leeks bed - not many leeks this year but hopefully they'll grow nice and big

The strawberry bed - masses of runners were removed

I also cleared the rest of the dried beans - soya (edamame) and Borlotti. There are quite a lot.... just have to shell them all now...

Jamie is going to pickle some of our Longor shallots this week - we finally bought some pickling vinegar - so they're at home now waiting to be prepared. And we pulled a Nicola potato - they are nice looking tubers; not slug-eaten and quite large.

There are a few of the Aviditas tomatoes which I'm going to add to salad lunches. Jamie made patatas bravas last week and will be making it again this week using the lovely larger tomatoes which are still in the greenhouse - they aren't Lizzano, which they're meant to be, but they are tasty.

My salad lunch is going to be very red this week - beetroot, tomato, red chard and red sweetcorn. I may add a red onion too for good measure :-)

I really wanted the Double Red Sweetcorn for the HAHA stall at Hungerford Food Festival on 7th October, but I'm not sure it's going to last that long; The covering leaves are very dry. And the kohl rabi are only tiny seedlings at the moment so they aren't going to be much of a show in 3 weeks time - luckily there should be plenty of squashes!

Aah, Autumn is definitely upon us, even though it was lovely and warm in the sunshine today - still Everything's Cool For Me as the title translates (apparently). Oh yes, and it has the word 'plane' in the title <ahem>. Enjoy!