HOTEL AZANA Tangers 2009.


  Never mind the smell,
   I think I will stay in this hotel.

  It's very cheap,
  this is where I am going to sleep.

  But as I opened up the door,
  something ran across the floor.

  I tried to ignore it,
   but I knew that I saw it.

  There was no sheet
  upon the bed.
  There was no pillow
  for my head.

  Then l pulled back the cover,
  only to discover,
  dreadfull a
  bedfull
  of
  cockroches.!

  It was quite appauling
  the whole place was crawling.

  lt really was not my imagination,
  it had to be an infestation.

  Honestly it was no hoax,
  there were a million more than one cockroach.

  I don't know how l stayed.
  But I had already paid.

  I slept the night,
  curled up tight
  and did not dare
  turn out the light.

  Whatever was l thinking!
  The whole place was stinking.

                         THINGS THAT GO BUM IN THE NIGHT.

   My sister came to stay with us in southern spain, with a view to buying an old property, had a glorious time untill her final night. She woke the household  yelling "l've been pierced by a red hot needle". Next a  centipede came pouring out from her sheets. This sent her into utter panic. She was running around the kitchen with my daughter throwing vinegar at the offended buttock. Poor sister she was howling like a Banshee! .  Eventually we got her to a different bed with warm words and vodka.

   The centipede  (oryza barbarica) is north african, like so many creatures around here. Centipede would suggest one hundred legs, but in fact they. have twenty pairs. The. first pair are adapted  for piercing and injecting venom. These two legs have been modified over time as poison claws. They are hollow and hold the venom which is made by the poison glands, to which they are connected .The body of this centipede is orange/yellow, each segment being black at the top. Indeed with.a dim eye they could be mistaken for a small serpent. Some reach sizes of up to 7 inches /18cms. l shudder!

   The body covering of centipedes is not waterproof, they easily dry up and die. Like the one in the photo below  which was swept out from under my bed. They are confined to humid surroundings such as compost heaps, under stones, behind sinks, in plug holes,bathroom floors, lurking in damp towels, and in your bed!

   They are hunters, hunting in the cool of the night. Few will hunt them. I have witnessed  a spider deftly tying a writhing one up in its web. In some parts of the world they are welcome visitors, eating flies, locusts and cockroaches, but also geckos and other noctural creatures. I once had a cecko who had taken up residence behind the door to my chicken house. Each morning l would carefully open up trying not to disturb it. l became rather fond of it. One day l found in its place a plump centipede.

  My sister did indeed buy a cortijo next to me and left a note. (Thank you for every thing-it has been great fun, except for !..........!?

   Then she left. On the way back through France she fell in a cesspit!.......

d

SEALS ON THE BEACH AT WINTERTON

There they were upon the sand,

not quite sea and not quite land.

A semi circle on the shore,
at least a hundred if not more.

Great furry fish,
streatching,
relaxing,
yawning and
scratching.

Sometimes singing a haunting song,
that ecoed the waves
of days long gone.

A salty smell upon the swell.
As they lay to pass the day.

Each and every single one,
a pebble dash hulk in the sun.

As we crept across the beach,
for they were within easy reach.

Some lumbered to the water,
where with fluid bodies,
in a liquid home,
either in groups or alone.
They stopped to stare,
dogs heads bobbing.
Or chased and played
were rollers sprayed.

so with fullfilled face,
we left that place.

For we were glad,
to see the sea.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE CHUMBERS!

   In the cool morning air the other year, our neigbours beckoned us over. He was whittling a piece of wood, she was lovingly peeling'chumber fruits', chumbers are the big juicy fruits of the most commonly seen true cactus (Opuntia ficus), the prickly pear or barbary fig. Once seen planted around the family  home acting as a convenience and rubbish tip, but it is also a valued source of food both for animals and humans.


   Having collected them using a long-handled pair of tongs, the greener fruits are the best, be careful, they are covered in little pricks and have to be rolled on the ground and washed to break them. Our neigbour gently picked one up on the end of a sharp knife, holding it carefully between finger and thumb she cut the tops and tails off, then slit them down one side and pulled back the fleshy skin to retrieve the hearts from within, succulent and full of large dark seeds. These were piled onto a plate and put into the fridge to cool.


   "Ah chumbers" they said. They are so good to eat, she could eat only one or two, they have a moving effect on the intestinal track, but he would eat ten to twenty in one sitting "Stong stomach" he said patting his pornch. A friend once said that maybe they have  other qualities,  after all they are cacti !?


   They then went on to tell me that pigs, goats, chickens etc all love to gorge themselves on them. Tha leaves or 'palletas' are also edible, baked or made into a soup. They told me that when the train used to run they would board it at Almanzora with a big bucket full and then walk up and down the carriages selling them for a few cents each, as a thirst quenching snack to fellow passengers. On arrival at Baza they would turn around and catch the next train home. "Very important those chumbers" they said. You could even get denounced to the Guardia for taking someone else's.


   It was the conquistadors who bought the 'opuntia 'from the 'New world' and with them came the cochineal  beetle. Well less of a beetle  more a plant sucking scale bug,closely related to aphids and cicadas. Some time ago I was up in Murcia and noticed that all the chumber/palletas were covered in a white mould, which was smuthering them and killing them. It turns out that this is caused by the cochineal bugs. They produce this  mould like web to stick themseleves to the cactus. Now it has arrived in our area and is turning a once spectacular plant into a mouldy mess.

The World Cock.

      Woke up the other morning , to the sound of a cock crowing. Then in the distance I heard another then beyond that another,  and so it went on and on. Wow I thought that morning crow must travel round and round the world! 

The Cicada

Et cantu querula rumpent arbusta cicada. Nil carborundum ilijitemi.

The searing heat is upon us. As soon as the sun rises then the Cicada start their screeching. My granddaughter came down from upstairs saying what ever is that screaming outside? I listened and realized that it was the Cicadas in the trees. I said that's Cicadas. Oh, she said what are they? So I told her that they were insects..Where do they come from and what do they do? Well, I replied, they are grubs in the ground for years then one day they come out of the ground, and climb a tree. That screaming noise is them calling to each other. Then they lay their eggs and die. She thought for a while, then said, is that all they do, be born, climb trees, scream at each other, then die! Why don't they get a life?

One man's headache is another man's music. But to others, their sonic singing was so highly regarded that the symbol of the Cicada can be seen in their art, sitting on the strings of the Cythera. High born Athenians wore golden ornaments in their hair and the coins of the Lorians carried its image. I would imagine that it was seen as some kind of sex symbol. With all that singing for a mate. They were even eaten, satisfying mind, body and spirit.

It's the males who are calling. The apparatus for producing such noise is a complicated arrangement of taught parchments, membranes, flaps, resonating cavities, projections, abdominal contractions and explanations, producing a seemingly endless rising and falling cantilena. This is found nowhere else in the kingdom of animals.

One can creep up on these noisy songsters but with three eyes they can spot us and quickly move to the other side of the branch to hide. They look a bit like huge horse flies and will readily take to the wing, often blundering through open car windows. They feed on the sap of the trees they occupy. After the wedding and honeymoon they reproduce themselves. The female cuts deeply into the host tree and lays five to eight eggs at a time, then the newly weds all fall down and die.

But the little ones are safe inside the branches where they hatch, descend below, burrow into the soil and feed on the sap of the roots and await another searing summer day to rise up again.

The Spanish Ibex

 I was looking out at the mountain the other day just staring into space when I heard rocks falling. I looked up and saw some goats just crossing the hillside, nothing unusual in that. It was then I realized that I could not hear the sound of bells tinkling. I looked again, they were all the same colour, brown and beige with white rumps, as I looked more, appeared as if from the hillside they were so well camouflaged. In all there were six. At first I thought them to be small deer, but soon realized they were Ibex because two of them had the large turned back horns. Wow. I froze and watched some more, as they had not seen me. They continued to cross the scarp, then turned to climb up, running, skipping, jumping and grazing. A couple of young ones were play fighting as they ascended. When they reached the top, they took it in turn to roll in a dusty depression to have a dust bath. Two of the biggest sharpened their horns on a rock. As magically as they appeared, they disappeared over the ridge.

       

My neighbour Ana phoned me to tell me that she was looking out of her stable door that leads into a small coral at the back of the house when suddenly one appeared running along the wall at the back and was grazing the leaves of an almond tree. Then to her delight a tiny one followed. She has managed to get some photos. When they left, they crossed the scarp and others speared from the rocks.

       

Since then they have been seen almost every day, in the mornings and once in the afternoon.

      

I have never seen them here before. Normally they live high up in the mountains and seldom go below the tree line, they are very shy and stick to the wilderness. Have they come in search of food? Well, yes, Ana's were eating her tree, also water, as it is very hot and dry being the height of summer and a drought. Could they be misplaced because of all the road building crossing great tracts of the countryside?

 They are a protected animal, but are taken sometimes for food and trophies! They have a reputation for being magical, and parts of them are used in folk medicine!. I hope the hunters leave them alone, they have been mistaken for Wild Boar and shot.