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 by John Clare
I shall be adding a movie version of this on YouTube.
Spring
I've decided I rather like
working from my car. It's a rather nice morning, and I have taken a
friend to do a market in a small village on the western end of the
Algarve, so here I am at eight o'clock in the morning, parked in the
yard of the local vet, surrounded by other cars, and market traders.
It's a lot warmer here in the Algarve now. The rains do seem to have
stopped. We've had 37 inches of rain, or nearly a metre of the stuff
over the past three months. That's two and a half years' normal supply.
The reservoirs are full. My field is like a sponge. At the far end I
sink about four inches into a soggy mess of grass and mud.
However, everything is burgeoning. The oranges are now not only in
fruit, but are in flower. The scent of the blossom is wonderful. I was
picking some fruit yesterday and when I sat down by the pool I was
surrounded by small black bees. Yes, my torrent of hair was full of
blossom, and I was attracting the bees.
Everything else is out as well. The apricot blossom is decorating the
bare boughs.
However, the peaches are in
leaf, and the fruit is forming nicely.
The loquats are now ready, and I'm cutting them into my breakfast
cereal.
I also cut them up and use them as a vegetable, mixing them with the
pumpkin that I buy in Lagos from the saturday market.
The fields are full of flowers, the hoopoo is giving his characteristic
hoot from a lemon tree.
The only snag is all the work that needs to be done. The garden needs
tidying up
after the rains have washed soil and stones down the slope. And the
river bank is a total mess after a wall collapsed.
john
14 March 2010
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