Mother’s Day in Spain 2012

Mother’s Day in Spain 2012

I’m back from our short break in Spain. My wife & I went to Spain, to Cuenca, her home town in the centre of Spain, on Friday 4th May & returned to “Old Blighty” on Wednesday 9th May. We went to visit my wife’s family & our two boys who still live over there. But primarily to be with her mum on Mother’s Day which is always the 1st Sunday in May.

The cheapest flight we could find was with Ryanair to Valencia. We have never been by that route before, we’ve always gone via Madrid. We left from Stansted & the flight was uneventful & we arrived on time in Valencia.

Orange trees in street in Torrente, Valencia

We visited an aunt of my wife’s in a town a few minutes taxi ride from Valencia airport. Neither of us have ever visited her town before. My wife is named after her & she has always been my wife’s favourite aunt. She met us at the airport & took us to her flat in a taxi. Along her street, which is very long as far as I could make out, there are dozens of ORANGE TREES! I was amazed! Many years ago when I visited Valencia on the odd occasion I’d seen orange tree by the 1,000s but never had I seen them growing in the middle of a city before!!!

While we were in the taxi I saw a roundabout with dozens of rose bushes all in full flower! Never before have I seen so many roses in flower in the street! I was flabbergasted! Unfortunately I was unable to get any photos of them.

I wasn’t able to see much in the respect of vegetation except for the Orange trees & Palm trees, 1,000s of them it seemed!

Train to Cuenca

Later in the evening we visited another aunt & her family. We hadn’t seen them since the wedding of our youngest son in Cuenca 5 years ago. One of her sons took us to the train station in Valencia as we wanted to catch the last train of the day to Cuenca. When we bought our tickets we were told the train would be late due to an accident somewhere up the line but that we were to take the train standing in the station & make a change at a certain station where we would be picked up by the train going to Cuenca. We were told it was the 2nd station. We got on the train & it started off. We had no idea how long it would take to get to the station & I started to drift off along the way. (Well, we had had no sleep the previous night having spent it in Stansted airport!) All of a sudden my wife shook me awake saying we had arrived at the 2nd station where we had been told we were to change trains. I was still a little groggy but we managed to get off the train before it took us along with it.

On the platform we were alone which seemed strange because we knew that at least 1 other passenger was going to Cuenca as well because she asked us before we got on the train if it was the one to Cuenca. We didn’t see her & thought she had accidentally stayed on the train! We couldn’t see the name of the station & there didn’t seem to be any indication of the train to Cuenca. We crossed under the line & went into the station to ask about the train we were supposed to take but there was nobody there. We returned to the platform where we had got off the train & I asked a youth sitting there if this was the platform to Cuenca & he said it was. I explained to him about the change of trains & the name of the station but he said this station wasn’t the one we should have got off at! As there were no more trains to anywhere at that time we decided to try & speak to someone at the station & this time we found a station manager in his office. We explained what had happened & he got on the phone & explained our situation to someone who apparently authorized him to stamp our tickets as valid to travel to Cuenca the next day.

Bottlebrush trees in Adaia, Valencia

We then found a hostel to spend the night. We had something to eat in a bar where the barkeeper was very friendly indeed. from the window of our bedroom we were able to see some Bottlebrush trees. I’d never seen these trees before;I’d seen bushes in the UK but never trees. So I took a few photos of them:

I had hoped to take a close up photo as we left the hostel but my wife was in a bit of a hurry to have breakfast & get to the train station by 7.45 a.m. as we had been told the night before so we would have time to speak to the station manager before our train arrived at 8.20 a.m. but I was unable to take one.

The rest of our trip was uneventful & we arrived in Cuenca at 11.35 a.m., bang on time.

Standard Rose Trees at Cuenca Railway Station

When we got off the train I saw some standard rose trees in the station in full flower so I had to go over to them & get a couple of photos!

These were the only roses I saw during our stay in Cuenca. I did see some bushes in bud but no others with open flowers.

Horse Chestnut trees

I was interested to see the difference in the timing of the flowering, as well as general growth, of plants in Cuenca. I was surprised to note that it was almost the same as where we live in the UK! The Horse Chestnut trees where just starting to flower, (there are 1,000s in Cuenca!), in the streets, I didn’t get to visit any of the parks in Cuenca.

One of the things that I most notice every time we go back to Cuenca is the lack of vegetation &, especially, gardens. As most housing is in big blocks of flats there are very few private gardens like we are used to in the UK so people garden on their balconies, the same as I did for most of the years we lived in Cuenca. There are however some very big public parks in the city which would not look amiss in the UK!

The Castle & El Castillo barrio

At the highest point of the city there sits the ruins of an ancient castle that Napoleon’s troops blew up once upon a time. Beyond the castle there is a sort of tiny village, (El Castillo barrio), which would have been outside the city walls centuries ago. I had a gander around it & tried to find the the very first house my wife & I ever lived in when we were first married. I found a house which I think was where we lived but it had been done up & modernized & I hardly recognized it after 38 years!

There was a house with many plants flowering in old tins & other “recycled” containers …

Here is a closer photo of some of the plants. I was astonished to see Petunias & Geraniums in full flower as well as other plants. There was also at least one rose bush with a buds about to open as well.

El Castillo – The Castle

Villa Adoracion

This was the 2nd place we lived at after getting married. The lady the Villa belonged to lived in it only during the summer & then went to her flat in Valencia to spend the winter there.

Apart from the main house it also had two small apartments for guests to stay & sometimes her daughters would spend the summer months there with her as well. She was a friend of ours since before we got married & she let us use one of the apartments free of charge while I looked after the gardens of the Villa. We lived there only a few months before I got a job in Madrid & we moved there for the next couple of years.

In another blog I’ll put in some more photos I took of Cuenca. Now I must get back to my allotment!

The overgrown Raspberry bed’s demise

The overgrown Raspberry bed’s demise

The overgrown Raspberry bed’s demise is well under way! Just over a week ago I dug up the first 3 or 4 rows in this bed & afterwards I dug in horse manure & sprinkled a little chicken manure on top of it in the hope that it would help it rot down faster. I then covered the whole bed with soil improver – the name given to the composted gardening waste the local council collects from people’s homes.

This is composted on an industrial scale & reaches very high temps & is therefore sterile. When Gerry & I went to the place they do it there was an enormous mountain of the stuff for free collection by anyone. Every time we broke away some to shovel into bags you could see the steam rising & feel the heat it gave off! Even after a couple of days in the bags on the allotment it was still warm!

The overgrown Raspberry bed in September:

The overgrown Raspberry bed is being dug up to make way for other crops next year. I don’t believe they are worth keeping & anyway they occupy far too much space for a half allotment. They haven’t been looked after for years & are full of dead wood from previous years as well as tons of couch grass, which, as most people will know, is very invasive & is terrible to get rid of as the smallest piece will grow into another plant which will spread its roots everywhere as well after a few months!

Gerry also has two beds on his allotments (1 & 1/2) & this year I’ve eaten tons of them, (to the point I began to think my face must look like a Raspberry! LOL! ), & as I will continue to help him with them I don’t want any more on my new plot!

The Raspberry bed is roughly divided up into about 4 rows with rows of canes 3 or 4 wide. It looks as if originally about 4 rows were planted with a path between each but these rows were subdivided into 3 or 4 rows in each subdivision. As Raspberries make new canes alongside the originals there isn’t a very clear division between rows. The paths may have been made just by the previous tenant over years of walking alongside the rows, perhaps when he first used to tend them &/or when picking the fruit. When I took over the plot at the beginning of September there were a couple of fairly clear paths where it was obvious the grass had been trodden down fairly recently.

Raspberry bed in October – A start being made:

This is what the the bed looks like now! It’s covered in the black soil improver which I’ve put on as a mulch after soaking the soil, to kick start the decomposition process of the horse/chicken manure & to try to stop as many weed seeds as possible from germinating.

Raspberry bed in November – The battle continues

I spent the better part of 4 hours on the next bit of the bed today, 5th November. I started off with clearing as much of the top growth of Raspberry canes & Couch grass as I possibly could. Just that phase took more than an hour! Then I started to dig as much as possible of the roots out – a mammoth task! As the grass roots form a thick, almost impenetrable layer several inches thick it’s very difficult to dig them out & is a backbreaking exercise – even for someone with a healthy back & mine is by no means healthy! So it requires constant stopping for a breather while stretching my back. I also had to be very careful to lift each forkful with my legs rather than my back! I only managed to finish 3/4 of the bed, but then I’m in no great hurry as I have all winter in which to get the canes & grass dug out. I’m only doing it now because the mild weather is giving me time!

I’ve got rid of the rusty old barrel you’ll have seen in previous photos! I had hoped it was full of composted waste but no, it was mostly full of Couch grass roots & a few canes & tons of stones & a little soil. I dug out the grass & canes & tipped the remains on the ground to dig in!

An hour later:

On Monday I hope to finish digging out the roots in the last 1/4 of the bed so I can start to dig in the horse manure. I doubt I’ll have sufficient time on Monday to finish digging in the manure so that’s a job to finish off on Tuesday.

Time now to go home & refuel!