November in Seville, the Hot, the Cold and the Butterflies

November has been a hard month. It is becoming a mix of dates of friends passing and friend’s birthdays, including my own. Like the seasons the end of the year is approaching and the years go by. But while we are here lets do our best to enjoy and sow seeds for the future.

Butterflies in November in Seville

The Alcazar

I am in Seville for two nights. Our favourite and local city. It is just over an hour away from the Sierra Aracena. Somos turistxs hoy! I am also reading an incredible novel called Sugar and Snails by Anne Goodwin.

Autumn in the Sierra Aracena about an hour from Sevilla but much higher up and colder. Our home.

We are staying in the Hotel Simon, once a casa grande of a rich Seville family, probably shipping or merchant wealth. But from the 1930s became a hotel. Today for a reasonable price you can enjoy its tiled splendours. And just walk out into the centre of Seville and come face to face with the giant Cathedral frontage.

The cathedral and Giralda

Patio of Hotel Simon

Our walk today!

First past the market selling all kinds of figures for the nativity story of Bethlehem or Belen. This is quite a collection that builds up for people here. Some villages do a ‘living Belen’ as in a village near us called Linares.

Artisan figures and models for the Nativity

We walk up to the university which was the old tobacco factory of the Carmen opera fame. Now you can walk in and possibly through and feel student life all around you.

University life and lectures. Resistance, repression and survival in Seville in the 40s and 50s

From the University we cross the road by the main theatre where renovation walk is ongoing and then into the Plaza de Espana park. There is fun with the rowing of boats and serious commitment to women’s rights with the poster display for International Woman’s day.

Plaza de Espana and Recognition of Women’s Rights

We watch an attempt at a wedding photo shoot and am glad we asked. We thought she was an Indian bride dressed in the traditional red with all the bead work. No, it was for a Gitano wedding. And of course the romany and Spanish gypsy links are from long ago in the north of India and Pakistan. And listen in to the stamping footwork of flamenco.

Wedding Scenes

From here we walk through the park and have tapas away from the central tourist part. Rested and full of garbanzos, cerveza and ensaladilla we walk through the Plaza de Americas. The archeology museum is closed but the Museo de arte y costumbres is open. We rest with the butterflies and orange lanterna. Painted Ladies. It could be summer. Pigeons abound in one place for food and parakeets squawk about in the trees. Eucalyptus and parakeets and sunshine warmth. We really could be in the southern hemisphere. But the plane trees are changing colour and there is a chill on the shade and at night

We walk back by the river where Seville is ready with an ice rink and fairground for Christmas fun. And a strange glass container for eating churros and chocolate with the Torre de Oro in the background

Along the Rio Guadalquivir

Saludos from Sevilla with all its history, art, culture and natural beauty built up around the grand river Guadalquivir. From the Moorish power base of the Alcazar and Islamic rule, through the colonial Spanish architecture and build to impress, to the more nuanced post Franco Spain, a modern democracy with rights, values and standards at its heart. Ready hopefully to tackle the next global problem of climate change. Drought is not new to Andalucia and water is a blessing. However, the drought and high temperatures are longer and the water levels lower.

The rivers flowing by Seville and into the Atlantic and the Donana wetlands

There is such beauty on this planet created by human hand and by nature. Let’s enjoy while we can and leave this world safer for those who come next. Lets watch our water consumption and keep the rivers flowing for wildlife too.

Notice in our hotel bathroom. But in the Sierra where the water comes from many village water supplies ran dry this summer.

Time to celebrate too. I am attending the book launch of an anthology of short stories this Saturday in London. Evergreen is the title. ‘Until we are Ever Green’ is my story about a neglected silver fir Christmas tree.

The fir tree section of Kew Gardens

Lets hope The Call of the Wild Valley gets published soon too. It’s on the list!

That Old Chestnut

That old chestnut is very apt for the Sierra Aracena which on the north slopes is full of very old chestnut orchards. Some trees must be over 200 years old. For visitors November is a major attraction because the changing leaves of Autumn are a rare sight in these southern parts of Andalucia. The chestnuts, poplars and fruit trees all add to an intoxicating colour spectacle. There are coachloads of tourists and the plazas of the small white villages are full of people enjoying local food after some walks around the area or just views from a coach tour. However, the local people who historically have some land are busy with the chestnut harvest. Except it is difficult to really make this profitable and each year seems to bring a different problem.

Last year it was a raging storm called ‘ Borrasca Barbara. Due to Covid and the birth of my second granddaughter, Jessica Rose, we were not here to witness the devastation to the old trees. On our return most of the fallen branches had been converted into firewood. I am sure I would have been more upset but friends helped clear the worst of it.

This year the price of chestnuts is very low at 1 euro a kilo so this has not made it worth paying to collect and it is backbreaking to do this all myself. I managed some at the rate of 3 kilos in about 20 minutes!

Then there is the peeling to do. And there is always some advice on the best way to do this, Mine is revealed if you read on!

At Navasola we have many old chestnut trees and each tree can deliver up to 10 kg of chestnuts if there has been plenty of rain in both spring and autumn. My main tasks in November is to prepare and preserve as many chestnuts as I can for my own use. This involves the tedious task of trying to peel off the inner skin. I believe chestnuts do not intend to be eaten by humans. The wild boar and other creatures do not seem to mind and can continue foraging or inhabiting these belligerent nuts for many months. However for humans there is a procedure to follow.

First here is the outer spiny case which is referred to as a hedgehog in Spanish. Gloves and good boots are needed to get the chestnuts out of these if still in them on the ground. Am sure this makes mechanical picking impossible.

Then once picked, beware, these are fresh fruits of the earth which can be infested with a maggot or go mouldy very quickly. I think commercially they are dried but for my own use it is good to keep some in the fridge. This year I was told to then put them in the sunshine in order for the peels to come off more easily.

Ah ha, I sat in the warm sunshine about two weeks ago, not possible now as the chill has set in, and began peeling off the outer layer. Not too bad but the inner thin brown skin which is so bitter was still pretty reluctant. But it was a very meditative and pleasant sun filled serotonin inducing time. I sat for about two hours and had some beautiful whole peeled chestnuts at the end of this. About 20. A labour of love and certainly not profitable. I felt privileged to have the time to experience this but my aching hand that night rebelled. Two years previous to this (as 2020 was lost to this chestnut experience) I developed a chestnut callous on my finger from peeling.

So why do this? Well I feel the chestnuts are a good and sustainable source of protein and make good additions to stews, and chestnut rissoles. And there is this desire to pick them up all glossy and shiny. And roast them.

We hear from some friends in Tenerife that they are enjoying walking down to the plaza and having roast chestnuts and red wine. Mmmm. I must retire to a place in the sun where that is the only way I experience chestnuts.

Well, this year we have discovered the secret to removing the inner brown skin is steaming. After roasting, cover with a cloth to allow the steam to remove the thin skin more easily. Using a steamer was also much quicker than anything I have tried before. Still takes some time but easier!

And the olives this year have been amazing but very high up in the old olive trees which makes collection more difficult. But the olives and the different types and different methods for preserving must be another post.

One of our major issues post Brexit seems to be the changes to our roaming data and use of our mobile Wifi. So until we work out another system I cannot use up too much data. But soon I will catch up with you and all those wonderful photographs on so many amazing nature blogs.

With good wishes to all from Navasola for Thanksgiving time.

Wherever the Weather, Whatever the Weather, for Dverse Poets.

Here is a poem about the weather for Dverse poets as I look through my window onto a very London Garden of the past. There is still an old apple tree from when this area was an orchard in the 1920s! How aware are we of how the weather is changing and the causes of this are possibly much more of our own making. When will we wake up to the stronger winds? The British Met Office has decided to name storms. Storm force gales of 80 mph are supposed to be hitting the North of England soon. The weather may be a little quieter in the south,for a while.

Garden and apple tree in London

Fuchsia for a dearly loved cat

In London Town the sun shines bright

After dismal days of rainy grey clouded skies.

Leaves falling with their tints of yellow red,

Tiny blue of tiny tit, pink plumage of wood pigeon

The lilac tones of fuchsia for a dearly loved cat.

A family garden of changing times

In the shade of an ivy clad old apple tree.

The weather is changing, November is now warm,

Am I too changing with the passing seasons.

The sky changes to a stormy grey, the leaves fall fast.
The Met Office wants us to feel storms are friendly too.
By giving names do we accept them more,
The changing times of climate crisis.

Abigail is brewing over the Isle of Skye

Far off in a North West corner of a very British Isle.

Warm and wet is that our future, clustered in a cloud.

Frozen drought and hurricane forces

Are coming further north or further south

The wind is knocking far too gently at our door.

Kew Gardens London UK .
Storms and glasshouses.

Stinkhorns and roses in the rain. Or phallus and posies!

Around Navasola after the rain there seems to be an abundance of mushrooms including these which attract flies and are supposed to be edible! After seeing so many flies on them any desire to eat them has gone!It seems the dear flies are being exploited by a cunning plan and Phallus Impudicus spreads its  spores on the feet of the flies! But the  rose is struggling to come out. I thought it was another poor purchase as it didn’t flower again after April BUT it is in these parts a very vibrant winter flowering rose.

Phallus impudicus

Flies on the stinkhorn! Look carefully!

A fertile feeling: Ms Peoni Broteri getting ready for rebirth!

Our wild child Ms Peony Broteri is now settling down for the winter with hopefully tubers deep down by the chestnut tree roots and the seeds hidden away. Have been told the seeds can take two years to birth into another wild and seductive Ms Peony.

Wild peony forest
January/February

The first Peony bloom in Navasola East, by an old chestnut, attracting insects.

Ms Peony chatterbox in  Autumn

October

Equinox flowers on Finca Navasola

Here we are back at the Finca in the Sierra Aracena. At first I thought there were no more flowers but on a short walk up to our era ( where the grain used to be threshed) we came across all these tiny flowers. In the bible of Mediterranean flowers it states they like rocky places and the stones are still in place on the era and it is on a rocky hillside. In the Latin names both the snowflake and squill are down as autumnal and with no leaves. These come after the flowering. And then there was this one extraordinary lily and again with no leaves and just a long stem. I’m hoping the Ohio blogger might cast some light on this variety. It is out now in the public gardens in the town of Aracena. An autumnal lily?

Having just passed the equinox at least all around the world we share the same amount of daytime for a while! And I really enjoy sharing blogs with everyone all around this most amazing world of nature and the humans that love and care for it!

Tiny flowers and one lily on the era this September.

Latin names
Scilla Autumnalis for Autumn squill
Leucojum autumn ale for Autumn snowflake.

Snowflakes and Autumn Squill….very tiny.

One lily…..seeded by birds as can be found in public gardens in the nearby town of Aracena.