October 2008
Costa Brava, Spain

It is now mid-October and I am filling in our journal backwards, otherwise I shall never pick it up again from the end of April. In the four weeks since we returned from our September break in the Corbière mountains in Languedoc we have been busy planting shrubs and lavender at the front of the house. While we were away, 60 tonnes of gravel was spread over the drive and the earth banked up to keep it separate from the grass. The idea is to plant the lavenders (250 of them) as a border for the driveway. The bank is actually the sandy subsoil, which is to be expected when a JCB is used in the garden. Absence of organic material and the general lack of water are the reason that most of the lines of shrubs around the property are not thriving. It is reclaimed land after all and I think historically recently too. I must check my gps unit again as I can’t believe it gave a reading of eight metres below sea-level. I plan to ask the nearby farm to deliver some manure for top dressing over the winter. It’s only a matter of summoning the courage since my Spanish remains almost at zero (perhaps I should get Mirabelle to do it). The farmers round about are grizzled and hard-working but have a sense of humour and observe my gesticulations politely so getting a trailer-load should be no problem.

I am beginning to think that maintaining the automatic watering system is less productive than watering by hand each evening, as new growth appears on the photinias (shown as red leaves) every time I have hosed them generousl;y. It has been so dry this summer that on three occasions we’ve increaed the time some of the lawn sprinklers deliver water, while also watering balding patches by hand. Goodness knows how moles, mice and voles manage to tunnel about in it in such large numbers. Twenty drowned voles needed removing from the pool one morning after a particularly windy day and night.

There have been no sightings of boar for several weeks since the cropping of the sunflowers and maize around us removed their cover. They seem to use the property as a short cut to the commercial orchards towards the main road and Montgris, leaving the hard ground alone and pawing at the softer earth of our lawn and any lines of shrubs that have been well watered. They managed to make a mess of the grass around the giant palm after it was replanted by the pool having been removed by digger and crane from obscurity beneath the even bigger trees at the back. I have seen them several times, to Mirabelle’s consternation, even lined up (a family of four) drinking from the pool. Then, last week, we went for a cycle ride along the river bank before sunset and she stopped suddenly on a bend, quite shocked at how black, large and mean-looking these wild pigs are. If she’s sleeping in Pansy because we are working different hours, I now escort her there from the house, even though it is only a few metres away. I don’t think they are keen on the new gravel. I have heard them outside the window cracking walnuts, not because they eat them but because they are stepping on them. Heavy they must be!

The property has also been evaluated, in the middle of global financial meltdown, and I photographed it for the estate agent’s books. The agent agreed it was silly bringing in an outside photographer. She got a good deal, as I spent two days on them for less money. He might have spent a couple of hours on the pictures. Following that intensive weekend was a gang of workmen filling in a corner of the property on the north side so that access to the barn from the main part of the house can be done without venturing outside. The tramontaine, we are told, can be strong enough to blow over the large potted bay trees by the front door. I have anticipated this by planting them on the boundary as part of an avenida from the entrance looking towards the mountains. It is slow progress and I have had to resort to using a pickaxe to cut decent holes for the shrubs. Mirabelle is on compost duty, wheeling barrow loads daily from the back to the front. She has also been tidying up the fruit orchard, which is now almost devoid of leaves. She has done a good job removing lower branches and suckers since I said that making it easier to get the sit-on mower around it is a must. I shall climb up in the trees for the second stage later in the month. All the Gala apples were picked last month from the commercial orchard, leaving a carpet of yellow apples marking the private property here. Masses, including a sweet red variety, remain on the trees. They would have been bigger if there had been rain in September.

The last trees fruiting at the back of the house are the walnuts, figs and persimmons (kakis locally). All of these are prolific and, still fretting over seeing nectarines and plums by the ton falling to their fate, I will make a big effort this week to sterilise some more two-litre jars and get preserving. We ate a lot of the first crop of figs, both red and green varieties, and those higher up the trees I shall preserve in brandy and sugar. I haven’t seen any references to this but it sounds a plausible Christmas treat! The persimmon tree is magnificent, now the only tree in leaf and fruit in the little orchard. It is possibly the non-astringent Okugosho variety and very heavily laden. Those that are a deep orange are really sweet and tasty though again, I don’t know what to do with them. I’ll have to look up how to dry them as I don’t think these would be palatable preserved in alcohol. Walnuts litter the lawn outside our flat and because it is still very dry (even after recent foggy nights) the husks have not gone slimy, staining the hands when collected. There are bowls of them everywhere. The cats are on mouse-watch inside at night as I can’t be sure it was mice that rolled some of the nuts across the brick floor in the reception hall from a large hoarde temporarily outside our door.