In the garden...............

Mussaenda erythrophylla

                                                                                

Originating in Eastern and Central Africa, Tanzania and the Congo,  this beautiful sprawling shrub can grow to 3 metres.    The flowers are yellow and surprisingly small but show up well against the large pink bracts.

At the moment it is growing in a large pot just inside the top gate as it's place in the garden has yet to be decided.

In the garden...........

Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum'

 

Purple Fountain Grass

How very odd!

There were some showers around yesterday late afternoon. We didn't catch any and the temperature was almost 30º again at tea time and this morning, well, it's 10.30 and already 26º and I am about to attack the ironing pile. Phew!

The latest paying guests downstairs, an elderly French couple, are enjoying themselves in our pool.
They arrived yesterday at 1.30 pm instead of 3 pm by taxi, speaking no English at all having come all the way from Puerto Mazarron (they informed us of this the previous day in a simple one line email) which is on the east coast just below Murcia and which will have taken at least 3 hours and having stopped off at the taxi rank in Motril and then taken another taxi to us, which was really quite enterprising of them but,  oh....just  think of the cost!

It was a late booking of 2 weeks and 4 nights, which, at the time, I considered to be a scam of which we do get quite a few.  Just a simple one line email enquiry,  no asking for a discount, no asking for extra information,  the whole amount to be paid up front which I was quite sure wouldn't happen but it did, with complete trust,  this just doesn't happen! 

They arrived with quite a bit of luggage and a pc and I got the impression that they had been travelling awhile. i.e. no hire car, just last minute booking ahead.

Ian heard the taxi driver say 'you've got my number' and they must have phoned him for a lift into Motril for a meal in the evening but of course, no taxi driver works 24 hours a day so coming back last night was a different story.  Ian had to go out and rescue them as the taxi driver hadn't a clue where we live and they obviously hadn't taken our map out with them.

It's all very odd, a real mystery.   Are they on the run?  Have they won the lottery?   Just retired?      No driving license between them?  Who knows? 

p.s.      We don't exist on the GPS!

The Generalife

  The charming villa overlooking the Alhambra is often said to have been the summer palace of the Sultans, but in fact it was a hunting lodge and country retreat, where the rulers, accompanied by their wives, could escape the turmoil of the palace. The Moors, like today's Andalucians, did not combat the heat by seeking the open air, but rather by withdrawing into shady, secluded patios and rooms.

The Spanish aristocrats who became its owners after the Reconquest radically altered the appearance of the little palace in the 19th century, adding an upper floor to the buildings at either end of the courtyard, opening the arched windows in the wall overlooking the Alhambra and installing the long rows of fountains which splice together in the air before splashing into the central pond.

One has only to compare the Generalife's courtyard to the other patios of the Alhambra to realise what a departure it is from the Moorish ideal of a perfect garden, which was totally enclosed, with, at either end of the central pond, a single fountain dish creating a burble which was just audible enough to break the silence.

  In spite of the changes made by the Christians, the Generalife is the most charming corner of the Alhambra, thanks to its gardens and fast-flowing water. In fact, the name of the main courtyard is the Patio de la Acequia - Courtyard of the Water Channel - in reference to the water which coursed through the villa before supplying the Alhambra below.

In Moorish times, the long wall facing the Alhambra was unbroken by windows except for the central balcony or belvedere, which allowed the Sultan to look over his palace and enjoy the evening breeze.


                                                       

The Christians opened the pointed windows in the wall, several of which are painted with the motto of the Catholic Monarchs, TATO MOTA, which, according to popular wisdom, is an abbreviation for "Tanto Monta el Rey como la Reina", loosely translatable as "The King sits as firmly in the saddle as the Queen". Isabella, as Monarch of Castile, was politically stronger than her husband Ferdinand, King of Aragon, and the motto reminded her that the coalition - consecrated by their marriage - gave equal rights to both. 

The upper floor of the pavillion at the far end of the patio was added in the 19th century by the heirs of the Count of Tendilla, but the lacey openwork of the arcades built by the Moors is miraculously intact.

One of the favourite legends of the Alhambra tells of a rendez-vous between the Sultana and a knight of the rival Abencerraje family, in the shade of this great cypress, which is now called the Ciprés de la Sultana. The tree is so old that it has to be held up with a metal brace. After they were discovered, the legend has it, all the men of the Abencerraje family were massacred, on the orders of the jealous Sultan.

The escalera del agua, or "water staircase" is genuinely Moorish. The ideal of the "desert people" was to have water flowing everywhere, even, it seems, along the bannisters of their staircases!