We see hydrangeas everywhere! There are one or two in the garden, but they have been tangled up in weeds so are a bit spindly. Ours have pink flowers, but both pink and blue grow wild. The photo is from one we passed on our walk.
Walk in the Woods
There are two lanes opposite our house which the council came and cleared so we decided to take a walk and see where they went.
Here are some photos – but I’ll apologise in advance as they are really just a record of the walk and not very good quality.
It was a walk of two very different halves – with the first half being through woods and the second half being in open countryside with seaviews.
We took the bottom of the two lanes – the one behind the green recycling bin.
This took us first past a neighbour’s horreo, which looks like it’s been renovated. And past his orange trees which branches were bending down there was so much fruit (more on that later).
The house to the left of the horreo is actually the very first house I saw for sale in this area, and while I liked it, it was out of our budget so didn’t make it onto our shortlist. I’m not sure if the horreo belongs to that house or not.
The path went into the woods we see in the front of our house – this was a very different landscape. The trees are nearly all eucalyptus – which seem to be everywhere. I think there’s a move to replace them as they have been the cause of many of the forest fires this year.
What was amazing, and that I didn’t take a photo of, is the really big sturdy stone walls that lined the lanes. There was no houses (that we saw, guess there could be ruins), which made me wonder why people would have lugged these great big stones up there. There aren’t any local quarries, so they would have had to have had a very good reason.
When we came out of the forest at the top, there’s an old pilar.
We then headed back to what we hoped was the village – and the landscape changed again and we found a great picnic area.
We could see into San Ciprian, the aluminium plant and beyond.
On the way back, we saw our local train station – which is the small shelter behind the hedge and in front of the cow.
The picnic area is probably less than a km from the house, but it felt a lot longer as the walk through the woods was very much uphill!
I Know It’s Not Stonehenge But….
Talking about the big stone walls we saw in the woods, I was looking at the big stones in the horreo and in the barn and marvelled at the dedication of the people who would have built these buildings. I’m not sure where the stone comes from, so that’s something to learn more about. The red thing is the sofa which we need to arrange to get taken away with some of the other ‘stuff’ we can’t fit in the car to take to the recycle point.
Clearing the Garden
We got the strimmer serviced that mum and dad gave us when we live in Mineral House and have been clearing the land around the house. We’ve also been clearing the ivy from the walls (where the ivy isn’t holding the wall together). Our neighbour (whose garage is the garage in front of the white house in the left hand of the photo), I think told us that snakes live in the ivy, or maybe in the overgrown bits – but it was enough to get us focussed! So far we’ve only found a slow worm.
There are signs on the house and horreo that at some stage the entire building was covered with it.
I’ve strimmed almost to the back, however I’ve left a patch of ferns which are growing about half a meter in height – as this is a deterrent to stop the dogs from heading out over the wall at the back.
And this is the front bit. It needs going over again, but it’s looking better. The small box thing in the center is our water connection – the council is going to move it onto the wall outside the house, so it is easier for them to check and read.
If you look at the wall on the right – this is where the ivy is (or was).
Ian’s been clearing it back from the wall and I’ll take a photo soon of how it looks de-ivied.
Another Picnic
This is a photo of another picnic area! We had been to San Ciprian and we know there is an embalse (reservoir) near there, which we tried to find, but not only was there was no access, we couldn’t actually see it. So just as I was saying ‘it doesn’t matter as we know there are lots of nice picnic areas around’ we found this. It was by a river, which I guess was feeding the embalse.
The embalse looks quite big – but we couldn’t see it and the only sign was a private road to a sailing club. But it was odd not to see any signs at all. I guess we just have to trust there’s one there 🙂
Cat Flap!
Our cat feeding area isn’t very successful as the bigger dogs can get to the cat food. We didn’t want to get a new cat tree as we’re quite tight on space, but we do have a small hallway which leads down to the barn which we don’t currently use – so we decided to put a hole in the door from the living room so the cats can get in there, but the dogs not.
Scrumping!
I mentioned that we walked past a neighbour’s orange tree where the tree branches were being tugged down with the weight of oranges. We’ve also seen another neighbour’s orange and lemon trees which are literally dripping with fruit. We do have a very big lemon tree at the back of our house – but with no fruit – which seems like the gardening curse of the Pullens started before we even moved in! But I think the tree was covered with ivy for years, so it might take some TLC to get it fruiting again.
Anyway – our neighbour who told us about the snakes stopped to talk to us when we were working in the garden and took us into the other neighbour’s garden and pinched a load of his oranges. She told me to make a cradle sort of thing with the bottom of my t-shirt and carry them back like that. I think dad would have liked her!!! I don’t think we’ll make a habit of it though 🙂