May – my favourite month

The hedgerows are filled with spring flowers and the fields with the first green shoots of crops. A journey anywhere is filled with colour, even down the back of our mountain to go to the supermarket, alongside the railway track and under the grafited bridge there are glorious shows of red poppies, purple vetch, bright green euphorbia, wild garlic, ferns, yellow and white daisies.  Yellow brush and mimosa. Spring blossom on the apple orchards signalling a decent crop later in the year. Fields of acid yellow canola flowers soon to be replaced by the golden bobbing heads of sunflowers. Flat fields tilled and waiting to be filled with maize, flooded fields with rice plants. Then the free food, it is wild asparagus season which grows plentifully all down the mountainside in every crevice and crack of fertile soil.

We, my ma in law and I, took a trip out to stay at the cabin for a couple of days and came across a field of sheep and goats, bells tinkling in the spring breeze as they grazed in the green fields. One chap raised his head every time we whistled and posed quite happily for a few photos.

Took a stroll along the promenade beside an almost empty beach, making the most of the early season before the main tourist season  begins. Even in July and August the beach at L’Estartit is so huge, so sandy and gently shelving it is never crowded. Just waiting for my favourite xiringuito to open, so I can enjoy a big salad with fresh grilled garlic prawns or a plate of steaming mussels. In the meantime we called at Tucan on the first line back from the beach and tucked into Calamars a la plancha with home cooked skin on chips and salad, ma had half a rostiseria chicken, succulent and juicy and falling off the bone. Can’t beat home cooked food after a morning titivating the cabin.

The other big event in May is the Girona Temps de Flors, its been missing its pizzazz and the big crowds for the last couple of years because of the lockdowns, shut downs, travel restrictions but this year it is back with a bang. One of my favourite places is the Plaza de Sant Domenec, where La Bistrot sets out its tables for romantic dinners in the atmospheric Barri Vell, every year it has a spectacular display up the stairs, this year its a river of steps through spring flowers. With a doorway of plants amongst the stone columns at the top.

Another spectacular display can be found in Placa Jurats, this year it is waves of planting constructed with netting and sea plants. We have found over time the best way to capture some of these is before they are quite finished and before the hoards of crowds arrive on the Saturday so a wander through the city in the week preceding is a must.

The work and details by the various groups that plan and execute these floral installation works of art are the unsung hero’s when you consider that it is months of preparation and growing, a rushed week of construction, ten days of (fingers crossed) glorious weather, not too hot that everything wilts or so wet it gets drowned and droopy. We have had years of both and it so disheartening so every year we live in hope.

The best, for me at least are the displays that are a mixture of fresh foliage and flowers and man made materials, recycled gear. I love the strips of fabric running down Ballesteries with the tall buildings huddled together, pedestrians and cyclists passing underneath without noticing. Of course, the Cathedral of Girona its huge bulk towering over the square and the imposing steps, this year covered in waves of green foliage with crests of creamy fronds, on a seabed of blue. I see a theme here around the cathedral area very coastal.

Bright pops of colour surprise in hidden corners, not always representing anything just glorious like a sun fallen to earth to fill a stoney corner. There are hidden courtyards that reveal their pedra walls and stairwells that are not pictured here but am sure before the Temps is done I will see pictures of them to share.

Then where would we be in May without a maypole, am not sure that is what is represented here it is a very British tradition I thought but nevertheless with a few strips of fabric fluttering in the breeze and a skirt of potted plants creates a childhood memory for me.

This, I think is my favourite photo, taken by Darren on the bridge that runs from The Rambla to Placa Indpendencia, it is a reminder of what we have overcome this last two years but so beautifully executed.My ma in law goes back tomorrow and I promised to do something funky with her hair which she had home cut after not being able to get to a hairdresser for eons. We have tried out hair spray colour wash highlighter in pink and pale blue before but after watching a few youtube videos I felt confident I could do an undercolour and highlights along the front and fringe with a semi permanent we went with a vibrant purple. She might be seventy six but she’s game for anything and she looks bloomin fabulous!