New palms

We have had two new palms planted.

Our Italian Cypress tree had become too tall and was taking the sun in the winter afternoons, so we unfortunately had to make the decision to remove it. A great pity, as it was a lovely tree.

Phoenix roebelenii

Anyway, that we replaced with a Phoenix roebelenii or pygmy palm. It already looks very smart and in a couple of years the trunk should develop the typical "hard scaled" look of its sort.

The roebelenii has a trunk of about 80 cm and can grow slowly to between 2 and 3 metres. It already has a very good looking canopy of fronds.

The other new palm has been chosen to replace our Phoenix canariensis. The canariensis was also becoming too large for our small garden and was also threatened by the red palm weevil, which is causing havoc in the area in which we live. Indeed, we had found some suspicious-looking holes in the base of the canariensis and also some cocoons, so that really made our minds up to replace the palm with a variety more suited to our garden and resistant to the weevil.

We first did some research, visiting the Huerto del Cura in Elche and a number of local garden sentres before deciding on a Howea forsteriana. Strangely, this palm is incorrectly marked in the Huerto del Cura, as can be seen in this photo (note the missing "r"):

Fosteriana instead of forsteriana

There were several examples of this palm in the Huerto (all incorrectly marked) and we were attracted to the narrow trunk and soft fronds. We bought quite a mature example from a local grower, It's a slow-growing palm, so should be fine where it now stands.

Howea forsteriana

You can see more photos in this album.

39 again

A couple of days ago I had a birthday.

I have one each year.

This was the 27th occasion of my 39th birthday and as this seemed to be the cause of extra celebration, SWMBO decide that we should go to a restaurant to have a celebratory meal. She even decided on the restaurant at which we should dine, her current favourite, the Restaurante El Rebate, near Pilar de la Horadada, some thirty kilometres from where we live.

El Rebate was the name of a small abandoned village that the Van Iseghem family completely restored, eventually creating the restaurant itself, as well as a wedding chapel and a shop selling a wide variety of wines, other groceries, handicrafts and all sorts of other things, whilst avoiding the more tacky tourist fare.

The restaurant occupies a large building that was once several small houses. In addition to the large dining room it has a huge terrace.

As usual, we enjoyed our meal at El Rebate and will no doubt be returning soon.

El Rebate seen from the parking area

Steps up to El Rebate from the parking area

Restaurant area of El Rebate

Main restaurant building

Terrace, which would soon be full

SWMBO contemplates the cold tapas

SWMBO admiring the desserts

A Belgian biscuit, a Spanish restaurant, a Welsh man

A Load of Bull(s)

There seems to be a very strange ambiguous attitude towards bulls here in Spain. People purport to have great respect for the animals and then promptly turn round to organise nonsensically cruel "traditions" such as bullfighting, or chasing the bulls through narrow streets, or making them jump off harbour walls, or running after them with spears on horseback, or tying flaming torches to their horns, or…

Well, you get the picture. For a supposedly civilised country still to allow such cruelty is just crazy. And the excuse that it is all done in the name of tradition is too pathetic to be taken seriously.

Anyway, there are bulls in Spain other than those poor creatures who have to undergo such senseless treatment. Sadly, few people, either in or out of Spain, seem to know about them, so here's a piece to whet your appetite.

We recently travelled to Belgium by car. SWMBO had decided that it would be a good idea to visit Toledo on the way, so we decided to make a trip of it and to also visit Avila and Segovia. Well, on the road between Toledo and Avila I noticed a small sign pointing to the Toros de Guisando. That rang a bell; somehow I knew something about these bulls, but I had no idea from where. Anyway, it was a quick left hand down a bit in order to turn onto the direction indicated. Within a couple of kilometres we arrived at the location of the bulls. In fact, we almost drove past the place, as it is so poorly indicated.

There is just a small parking area at the side of the road with a couple of very small signs, hidden by the branches of some large trees, to point out to the weary traveller that this is the place.

Behind a fairly substantial wall, hidden from view of passing traffic and with just a single small entrance gate, is an open area of ground in which stand four magnificent stone bulls.

The bulls are over two thousand years old and were once spread over the surrounding fields. Nobody knows their purpose: magical, religious, fertility symbols…? Perhaps there were more such bulls in the area, certainly the types of rocks that lie in the fields offer plenty of suitable raw material. In any case, these four were brought to their current location probably in Roman times, in about the third century.

Each sculpture is about two metres long and perhaps one metre-thirty high. The carving is naive, but very beautiful and the bulls present a very strong impression. They each seem to have its own character. They are, of course, well weathered, but remains of exceptional detail can still be seen, most notably in the skin folds on the neck of one of them.

Carving details still visible

Another bull carries a Latin inscription that dates from the time that the Romans moved them.

Latin inscription on side of bull

Although the site of the bulls seems to be little known nowadays, it must have been held in some esteem in times gone by, for it was here that Enrique IV proclaimed his sister, Isabella the Catholic, as his rightful heir to the Kingdom of Castilla in 1468.

A small information panel provides some history

Molière

 Driving back from our recent trip to Belgium, we had intended to make a detour to revisit the Auberge de La Truffe in Sorges. However, the weather in France was very poor and going over the Massif Central was so disheartening that we decided instead to head straight for the Spanish border.

Looking for a suitable place to stay, we noticed that we would be passing very close to Pézenas and remembered that we had visited the town some 35 years ago, when we had stayed at a hotel that Elise thought had once been Molière's house. We wondered if we could find hat same hotel again and if it would be equally impressive.

Driving into the town of Pézenas we saw a small sign advertising the Hôtel Le Molière, so our hopes were high and soon we drove onto the main square, on the opposite side of which we could see the fine old hotel, which still looked suitably impressive from the outside.

Inside, the hotel still maintains an equally impressive air, as can be seen from the photos.

It seemed smaller than we remembered, especially the gallery that looks up to a glass ceiling. The stained glass of the ceiling was unfortunately hidden behind some drapes, placed there to keep the sun out during the long summer. Looking up through the gallery, you can see the various levels and their walkways which lead to the rooms of the hotel.

Downstairs in the entrance hall, which also serves as the breakfast room, the walls still carry the huge paintings that depict scenes from some of Molière's most famous plays. Other parts of the walls are filled with framed and signed photos of notable names of French stage and screen, as well as numerous sports personalities, all of whom have stayed at the hotel.

Sadly, however, the hotel now seems tired and in need of careful and thorough renovation. It is unfortunate that what could be such a fine hotel is located in Pézenas, a town which really has very little to offer and itself looks tired and in need of some renovation.

According to the hotel's own website, it was "entirely refurbished" in 2003 (it also reveals that it was never Molière's house). Well, it really doesn't show. The rooms are clean, no problem there, but the bathrooms need replacing, the passageways need redecorating, the lift is megalithic, the staircase is in a terrible state… A great shame, for the place has so much character, so much potential elegance, so much history…

I truly hope that the Hôtel Le Molière will not be allowed to fall further into disrepair. It most assuredly deserves a better fate.

And, who knows, perhaps we shall be able to visit it again in another 35 years.

Flex mad

Yes, indeed. At almost 65 years of age I have become a flex maniac.

The thing is, I recently read Richard Feynman's book Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman. I was so fascinated with Feynman that I searched out a biography of the man and found one written by James Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman.

In this biography, brief mention is made of the discovery of the flexagon by Arthur Stone, a British colleague of Feynman's at Princeton University. Other students at the university became so fascinated with this apparently simple construction, made out of nothing more than a folded strip of paper, that they set up a committee to study the flexagon in its various configurations. One of the members was, needless to say, Richard Feynman.

Research into this interesting but apparently frivolous topic came to a halt with the war effort (Feynman went on to work on the development of the first atomic bomb, for example) and little more was heard of flexagons until Martin Gardner published an article about them in a 1956 edition of Scientific American.

Well, I've always liked paper-folding and have a sort of unfulfilled interest in maths (largely destroyed through conventional teaching methods), so flexagons sounded like something I needed to know more about. And, thanks to the Internet, that's a goal that is easy enough to achieve nowadays.

You might well enjoy making and playing with flexagons yourself, so here are some of the best sites that I have found. They range from simple starter sites to rather more complex ones that go into the theory behind these fascinating objects.

Jill Britton's Let's Make a Flexagon site is a good place to start if you've never made a flexagon before and want an easy introduction to see what it's all about. She shows you how to make a trihexaflexagon (one with six sides and three faces), including a video on how to fold it (folding is called flexing in flexagon-speak), and a full-sized template to print out. (The image accompanying this entry shows one of the faces of this flexagon.)

Aunt Annie's Crafts offers a good page for beginners, too. The first page presents numerous patterns and templates for trihexaflexagons and a sort of hidden link takes you to a second page with patterns and templates for hexahexaflexagons. (And there's another links for tritetraflexagons, those with three faces and four sides).

Keith Enevoldsen's Think Zone includes a page about flexagons that presents a very good looking example of a hexahexaflexagon (six sides and six faces) that Keith designed himself. Full instructions and templates are provided in a linked PDF. Excellent stuff.

Scott Sherman's Flexagon site is about as comprehensive as you'll find, with models ranging from the very simple to the very complex. Video instructions and demonstrations accompany plenty of templates that can be printed out for cutting and folding. Superb.

Flexagon.net also offers a wide selection of fascination flexagons. The site is perhaps more technical than Scott's and not as pleasant to navigate, but you'll still find plenty of variation and lots of templates.

Gathering for Gardner offers plenty of everything to do with flexagons, including a full collection of Vi Hart videos about the creatures and several excellent templates.

I am sure that there are many, many more resources out there, but I think that's enough to be getting along with. So from now on you have no excuse for being bored or having nothing to do. Get folding and flexing!

A New Arrival!

The first sign that a new arrival was on its way came at about nine o'clock in the morning when the phone rang and we were informed that a delivery was on its way and would be arriving in some fifteen minutes!


About twenty minutes later we were taking care of what was clearly a very precious package.

 A 10 cm dilation revealed the first signs of the precious contents. The excitement was so great that I just had to go to the toilet!












With some gentle persuasion and the odd push or two, the package was guided carefully out of the opening. It was covered with a white shroud.











With the shroud removed, the newborn could be seen, though it was still in the foetal position. Another gentle tug and it was released from its afterbirth and umbilical cord.















Then it opened up to reveal its true glory: an Apple MacBook Air, 13" screen, with 8 GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD.

Vital statistics:

• Height: from 0,3 to 1,7 cm
• Width: 32,5 cm
• Depth: 22,7 cm
• Weight: 1,35 kg

Let's Have a Ball

Elise wanted some basil the other day. Not he of Fawlty Towers fame, but the herb: she adds it to tomatoes, pasta, and various other concoctions.

She likes to use fresh basil, so I had to take her to one of the local garden centres, Naturplant, to buy a plant. And a very nice plant it was, too (actually, she bought two).

While we were at the garden centre, we also took a look at the cacti. They usually have a good selection of small cacti and now was no exception. This time, however, they clearly had recently had a delivery of larger cacti. Elise called me over to see on, a beautiful Echinocactus grusonii.

Well, we hadn't intended to buy a cactus, but this was an excellent specimen and the price was also right, so it didn't take us long to decide to purchase it.

The Echinocactus grusonii has a diameter of just about 55 cm. and a circumference of about 170 cm., so it's quite a size. The person who delivered it estimated it to weigh at least 40 Kg. I estimate it to be between thirty and forty years old.

Popular names for Echinocactus grusonii include Golden Barrel Cactus, Golden Ball, or, my favourite, Mother-in-Law's Cushion.

If you'd like to learn more about the care of Echinocactus grusonii, the best site I've found is this one.

A while ago we visited Cactus d'Algar, a wonderful botanical garden at Callosa d'en Sarrià (inland from Benidorm, close to the Fuentes del Algar) devoted to cacti. There we saw this huge field of Echinocactus grusonii:

Elise will have to buy a lot more basil for us to reach that stage!

Now, about the repotting…