November visit

Bit of a grey start at Plymouth and blowing a gale. 

Too windy to get to the edge of the heli-deck

Had a good sleep due to being rocked all night and woke to a lovely dawn, we should have been a few hours off Santander but due to bad weather we were about three hours behind schedule. The sea in this pic looks fairly calm but it wasn't.

Sometimes we could see out of the front window...

…and sometimes we couldn't.

By mid morning the swell was calming down a bit although there was still a big ground swell every now and then.

No more photos for a few days but yesterday there was a wonderful sunset that turned the sky to fire.

I really miss the view from here when I am in the UK.

Our new tenants have done some good clearing in the jungle of brambles and autumn is just starting to turn the chestnut trees.

Composting vegetation getting ready to enriched the earth.

Last year's lemon tree pruning seems to have led to a growth spurt, plenty of small flowers starting I hope we get a good crop in the coming year.

Brugmansia still flowering very well.

This young banana recovered well from being strimmed and a young echium sprouting right inside a fuchsia ah well the fuchsia might survive.

We took some time out on Sunday and headed over to the lake near Cabanas, despite being overcast it was a very warm 19C.

 Not a very wide path a couple of hundred meters of vertical drop and very little protection.

Dunno what the iPhone did to make this shot seem so dark it was bright enough at the time, the white streak is where a waterfall streams down the canyon wall.

Having explored the steps of doom by the dam we jaded for a gentle walk along to the old quarry higher up on the valley side. managed to pick another carrier bag full of chestnuts to bring back.

They are replacing the big discharge pipes that run inside the dam, on the outside at the bottom is a load of shuttered fresh concrete and works that are not complete, the water looks only a few cms from starting to pour over the lip, I guess they know what they are doing.

Mark decided to get a closer look over the edge, I did not. 

Somewhere in amongst that bracken on the left is a herd of wild goats, we smelled a few but did not get close on our side.

That is the top part of the waterfall that cascades down the valley sides.

Autumn is only just starting over here.

Earth star just starting to do its slow motion hydraulic explosion...

…a few minutes later and it is growing...

Another 20 mins and it would have looked like this and stunk of rotten meat.

mmmm tasty boletus.

We had a break on our last day, an hour of kayaking down at club nautico

Not a breath of wind when we set off and comfortably warm with glimpses of sunshine.

it was a stunning paddle, we hardly spoke to each other it was so still we didn't want to break the silence.

We eventually stopped and let the ripples play with the reflections.

From here our house looks like it is very close to the lake.

 At the west end of the lake there was a forest of trees to negotiate, the water level was lower than I have ever seen it.

The invading crayfish are not hard to catch, Mark tried one as a hat ornament.

Galicia is vibrant in the sunshine fields turn emerald green.

We could have spent all day looking at the reflections but we had to head home and get on with clearing the house out and packing a trailer full of furniture to take back to the UK.

24 hours later we were in Santander waiting to board the Pont Aven again.

We left in similar weather to that when we arrived but we saw a fair bit of sunshine and the night temperature was often over 17C so it felt a little like a summer trip.

A day in Spring

I spent the most of the day fitting our new chimney and sorting some plumbing then had a wander round the garden and off to see friends. 

I think this is purple toadflax, it is very like little snapdragons and there is loads of it.

Bindle, Ruan Stanley and Alfie have arrived this is Stanley looking pensive.

Lorena's lovely little chalet mostly made from reclaimed material...I want one please Sam.

When she saw the camera she insisted on posing 

The old olive tree provided much needed shade even late afternoon it was a tad too hot today.

Alejandro decided to wait for trifle rather than come kayaking, the video is the last few hundreds meters of track leading to where it is easy to get the kayak in the water. 

The track leads to a very handy and quiet parking place.

Tamarisk is flowering well this year.

There seems to be a path going on round the estuary towards the bridge must explore it one day.

An hour after high tide is the wrong time to go in at Vilarrube, there is a lot of water heading out to sea, the trouble with that kind of Kayak is there is not room for anything but a very compact camera so no pics of the journey unfortunately.

The main beach at Vilarrube is really safe but the estuary bit is not, it took no time at all to get from the launching spot out to sea but coming back was more effort, the first half of the outgoing tide is fairly dangerous with very strong currents as the whole estuary empties through a narrow channel in a couple of hours. Coming back in at times the flow was faster than I could sprint paddle against and its a long very rapid kayak. I had to dodge from one side to the other to make any progress and stopped off to play with the whirlpools, amazing how they move around within about a 40 X 40 meter area and very strange being spun around by them, I would not like to have been swimming. I eventually made it back a few hours later, fortunately a little creek leads fairly close to the shore and there is not too much dragging across sand to do.

Back home I could hear a lot of singing outside and a flash revealed two local suitors seranading our pretty kittys.

And behind them an arum captured by flash.