Here Come the Flowers

The first flowers have appeared on the cacti, led, a couple of weeks ago already, by members of the Echinofossulocactus genus, together with Mammillaria. Now, others are in bud, notably a number of Gymnocalicium, whose flower display is always something wonderful. Plenty of succulents, other than cacti, are also flowering. But this week the tiny Turbinicarpus schmidickeanus (?) has come into flower.

The cactus itself is a tad less than 3 cm. in diameter and less than a centimeter tall. It produced five buds, three of which open up in the sunlight to produce a bunch of flowers, the size of which overshadows the body of the cactus.

Croeso i'r Gwesty Quino

Hotel Quino, in Guardamar del Segura, recently reopened after renovations. In the reception area, facing the guests as they enter the hotel, is a panel on which Welcome is written in three different languages, Castillano (commonly referred to simply as Spanish), Valencian, and English.

Ever since I first saw this panel, I have been kidding Joaquin and Javier, the hotel owners, to place a real language, namely Welsh, on the panel, too. And She Who Must Be Obeyed has gently suggested that a slight modification to the English lettering would turn it into what for her would be much more acceptable Dutch.

A few days ago, we picked up some people from Alicante airport and took them to the hotel. Imagine our surprise, when we were met with a Welcome panel which included our requested modifications: Javier had spent the afternoon cutting shapes of letters from magazine pages, in order to adjust the English Welcome into the Dutch Welkom and to spell out the word Croeso (Welcome in Welsh).

Sadly, the modifications to the Welcome panel were only of a passing nature, and it is now back to its three-language poverty. A nice gesture, though, and one that was much appreciated.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi

According to my watch, it's 29 February today.

In reality, of course, it's 1 March, better known throughout the world (!) as Saint David's Day, equivalent to the Welsh national holiday, though, thanks to a rejection by the English-dominated UK government in 2007, no bank holiday is allowed on that day in Wales.

The day actually commemorates the death of Dewi Sant. Old Dewi died on 1 March, probably in 588.

To celebrate Saint David's Day, we had a lunch of caldo con pelotas, which is the Spanish equivalent of faggots and peas, my officially designated National Dish of Wales. The Spanish version uses chick-peas instead of green peas and lemon-juice is used instead of malt vinegar, but I'm not complaining, as I enjoy the dish very much!

My wish for this Saint David's Day is that Wales and Scotland become independent and prosperous members of the European Union (with Northern Ireland returned to Ireland, where it belongs), and that England become a small and unimportant state of the USA, which it clearly wants to be; perhaps it could be renamed Old England to avoid confusion with the already existing state of New England.

Oh, and perhaps we could change the national anthem from Hen Wlâd Fy Nhadau to Dafydd Iwan's Yma O Hyd.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus i chi!

Keep the red (dragon) flags flying!

Cymru am byth.

Still at it…

Well, it's been more than 24 hours since we first discovered the two locusts on our palm, locked in their lovers' embrace and they're still at it.

They've either got considerable stamina, or are locked together eternally, or are simply doing what their kind do. I suspect the latter.

They don't just sit there and get on with it, either, but have had a good wander around the palm, with Mrs Locust (I assume some marital relationship here) munching away at a leaf whenever she feels a bit peckish.

In the meantime, our other monster in the garden, the praying mantis, presumably being of a more religious than carnal nature, just keeps on praying.

You can see more photos of the garden monsters in this jAlbum.

Pumpkins!

When we went to Belgium last October, She Who Must Be Obeyed thought it would be a really good idea to bring a pumpkin back with us. Apparently, the pumpkins that are available in Spain do not have an orange enough skin (no, no, don't ask for further explanations, as I am unable to provide them).

So one day, a neighbour in Belgium turned up with the order, except that, instead of just one pumpkin, SWMBO had ordered five of the things. And they were m-a-s-s-i-v-e. Cinderella wouldn't have had a mere coach from any one of them, she'd have had a flipping charabanc! Fortunately, they were able to just fit into the car and we managed to get them down to Spain intact, even if the cost of petrol doubled because of the added weight and I was almost obliged to relicense the car as a Heavy Goods Vehicle.

We still have one of the Belgian pumpkins, but the others have disappeared in the form of soup, or as gifts to puzzled Spaniards, who walk away with a quarter of a pumpkin and a somewhat dazed expression.

Not to be one to pass up a chance of giving me something to do, SWMBO carefully saved some seeds from one of the monsters and I sowed ten of these a couple of weeks ago. Already, nine of the seeds have sprouted, so if all goes well, we should have our own pumpkins in time for next October and there will be no need to cart any from Belgium.

Birds do it, bees do it…

Altogether now, "Even locusts on palm leaves do it"!

We have been enjoying some really fine weather recently. Perhaps as a result, we have some "monsters" that have become more or less resident in the garden, including a praying mantis and a couple of locusts. The locusts seem to have got a touch of spring fever and spent all of today wandering around our palm in this most compromising of positions. The female seems to take it all in her stride, munching along as the male gets on with his purpose in life.

Ten points if you can guess the Elvis recording suggested. A clue: the title is hidden in the above text.

Haemorrhoids cream, anyone?

We were in the El Corte Inglés store in Elche today (yes, again) and I came across a jar of paté in the health-food section.

As faithful readers of this blog will know (if there are any) from my earlier posting, "How an mp3 player helps to relieve me of my haemorrhoids while allowing me to play with my little organ…," I am one of the world's foremost haemorrhoids sufferers (or so it seems at times). I was, therefore, immediately drawn to the name of the product, "Shiitake."

Could this be the latest in haemorrhoids treatment? A cream-like paté to be spread on one's slice of home-made bread?

I hate to imagine where else one might spread the paté and instructions on the label were less than abundant and far from detailed.

I left the pot in the shelf…