I can’t quite believe it’s been eight weeks since I arrived in Spain. After six months of being away from the Pueblo Blanco and the garden. When we bought La Casa we said we wouldn’t be here in August because of the heat, we did in 2017 as friends wanted to come and visit. 2017 was fine. 2020 was not. I like the sun. I like the heat. But to be honest there is heat and there’s heat. This year also meant that every time I stepped out of the gate on went a face mask. In extreme heat. Some people may look good. Hot. Sweaty. Posed. Me. Well I don’t look good at all. Try walking up la Rampa in late 30* heat. If I looked any way decent at the bottom ( of the Rampa ) I sure didn’t at the top.

But 2020,is no normal year. I arrived on an air bridge which two weeks later was taken away. There is no certainty in travelling this year at all.

It’s been a funny eight weeks. Five of them on my own until Ian arrived although there was,morning coffee and supper with the neighbours and supper in town with friends. I was there to garden ~ but try gardening in that heat. Watering at midnight or at 6am in the dark, trust me it’s not easy. When we moved in there were pick axes lined up in the garage. I thought. Hi ho hi oh it’s off to work we go. I now know why they are there. Outside the rainy period which is brief but often pretty heavy the ground is as dry and as hard as cement! Planting is nigh impossible. And you know when you read ” drought tolerant ” but really your looking for desert plants. This year well it’s been that.

I read my book constantly these days before buying anything. And take advice from the author who owns the garden centre just outside town. Back in February I bought a Colocasia mojito just as I was leaving. I asked if she would keep it in the poly tunnel until I was back in a month after returning from Mexico. She kindly agreed. Six months later it was delivered! She’d looked after it for us.

It wasn’t all sunning myself. Topping up my tan. It was none of that. Afternoons in an air conditioned room watching Netflix. With an occasional 15 minutes into the garden and then back inside. To lie down in a cold room. And I’m not joking. But I did manage to fill a skip. We had had the jacaranda cut back in March and the cuttings and branches had been left in the drive. There was an idea of cutting them up for the wood burner. That idea soon went out of the window. It was hard enough filing the skip before 8am and after 10pm. I wasn’t going to cut up wood as well.

Before anyone tells me. I know I shouldn’t have cut things back in that heat. But nothing had been cut in 6 months. Salvia were leggy ( I didn’t cut them). The gaura were leggy. ( they had been cut ) partly by someone who had been going in once a week to check the plants. But the Australian wisteria had gone bonkers and needed to be cut back from the gate. Some of the oleander were not only running away with themselves but with everything else. The yellow jasmine on the drive had gone bonkers. So I pruned. A little. ( lies. It was. A lot) on the basis that when I return to the UK who knows when I will be back.

Things needed repotting. The two ferns in front of the garage were by the pool. They had grown so large one had broken its pot so we had to re pot them. We bought the new pots ~ and I remembered not to ask the stupid question I asked in year 1. ” Are they frost feee”. But of course they were too big to go by the pool so 2.5/bags of compost each and they were placed in front of the garage. I don’t know why but the ferns gave f bonkers this Spring and Summer.

Having tidied the garage and kitchen beds and tidied the path it’s good for another few months.

I’ve had to remove one or two of the giant leaves off the Strelitzia Nicolai as you risked being smacked in the face as you came into the garden. I removed probably ten yucca shoots to give a bit more air and light from near to the gate and planted a few more gaura which have become my favourite plant this year. Inspired by a friends garden in Essex who has a gorgeous path planted with gaura I decided to plant some mixed with lavender along this path. The lavender was great for the first two summers but I replaced most of it as it had become too woody. Some has been fine. Some hasn’t. But the gaura has been gorgeous. Like little white butterflies hovering.

White gaura on the path. Red in the beds. Hopefully I will be able to cut them back properly and at the right time to get an even better display next year.

I’d waited nearly 6 weeks for the flowers of the Salvia oxyphora to appear. The plant needed to have been cut back a bit but it was too late to do it this year. So the plant is tall and leggy ~ unlike me ~ but it was worth the wait for the lovely flowers.

The oleander has gone over earlier this year. There is still some flower about but a number of the plants have already started to form their magnificent seed pods. Long and thin they open up,as they ripen with fabulous furry seeds inside. I have cut a number of them off before they throw their seeds around the garden. Oh and thanks to everyone that reminded me. All parts of the oleander are poisonous. But then again so are so many of the plants in this garden.

We have some pretty large agave on the roundabout that’s not a roundabout. I don’t want them to flower as soon as they do the large plant dies and I’m happy to look at other peoples plants flowering! These are spiteful devils. I’m sure they move when you are near and spike you given the chance.

We seems to have been lucky this year. No nasty little processionary caterpillars on the three pine trees on the bank. They really are nasty little blighters and we get someone in to remove them as soon as we see the tell tale white nests in the trees. Dangerous to young children and to dogs. The caterpillars. Not the people we get in.

The garden still has some colour and interests which is surprising as it’s been so hot for so long and without rain. The flowers of the. Have returned. The gorgeous leaves of the nispero or loquat are standing high. The black aeonium is looking good but let’s not linger ba on the one dahlia flower. The smallest dahlia I have ever seen. Come late September and October the garden will get its second wind. The osteospermum will be back in flower as will the salvias.

There has been fruit. As well as the almonds. I haven’t picked the almonds this year. I didn’t want to venture into the area where we have them as it had not been strimmed and the dried grass and wildflowers are scratchy and itchy. Call me what you like.

But to be fair I have last years and the years before In the cupboard. We have grapes which have been picked. All 3 kilos and frozen. Who freezes grapes? Me. So I can make grape and rosemary jelly when I have time. It works. Back in February I picked the windfall lemons from next door ( with permission as Laura will read this) and sliced and juiced them for the freezer.

Waste not want not. This year I made more limoncello. That too is in the freezer. Along with the juice in ice cube bags! The figs were poor again. Well I suspect they’ve been and gone but there were a few. The pineapple guava is just getting the fruit. I don’t mind missing them. They are ok. Ish. But a friend described them as tasting like germolene. I think that’s a bit harsh. But as I hate the smell of gerolene and TCP I try and avoid both.

Now I know I have moaned about the heat and to be fair I went down the mountain only once when I was on my own. Not because I was scared but because it was too hot and I was too lazy. But when Ian arrived he was more encouraging about getting out and about. As long as I was driving.

Twenty minutes drive down the mountain is Caleta de Vélez a marina and the main fishing port for the Malaga region. We usually eat at El Camarote with views over the marina and fabulous fish. Then a walk along the promenade toward Algarrobo. I love watching the fisherman lay out the nets and sew them to repair any breaks.

Oh. And the food is delicious.

One of the other places we usually take a drive to is down the other road. We have the windey and wiggly. People have their favourites. But we always head to Nerja. For a walk along the Balcón de Europe. I was surprised just how quiet it was this year. I know that we are in the middle of a pandemic but it’s did take me back. The little beach with the old fisherman’s cottage on the beach itself was being monitored. One person off. One person on. That’s social distancing etiquette for you.

No visit would be the same without eating out either in the plaza Almijara which I did numerous times at my favourite Casa Paco. Where my dietary requirements are well known. Where the fabulous staff can order direct for me.

Or to El PIlon to see my friends Dani & Loli.

Masks. Let’s talk masks. In Spain it was second nature. Leave the house. Teeth. Keys. Wallet. Mask. To be worn outside the house ( not in the garden obviously);whenever you went out. In the car if you were travelling with another household. In the shops. In the streets. And everyone complied. You rarely saw anyone that didn’t.

So we have made the best of our visit. The thought of quarantine doesn’t fill me with joy. But rules are rules and we will comply. 14 days is a small price to pay for 8 weeks in paradise.

Who knows when we will return.