Parkanaur Forest Park Parasol Beech Trees

The other day I dragged my mum, Emi and the WonderDog off in search of a couple of freaky beech trees. I had a vague recollection of having stumbled across them on my travels a lifetime ago in Parkanaur Forest Park, here in beautiful County Tyrone. I'd bored my family with stories about how these trees grew the wrong way up, and were a definite rarity in the world of all things botanical.

I'll admit that I got some of the story twisted. They've got roots at the end of their branches, I'd said. And they grow upside down, and back to front. 

So, okay, I'll level with you: they don't exactly grow back to front or upside down, but they are genuine 24-carat freaks of nature.

Parkanaur Forest Park Parasol Beech Trees

Conwy - a perfect stopover

On Friday morning Emi, the WonderDog and I blew town super early (in the wagon and rolling by 4:15 a.m.) on our way to Ireland. I’m not sure when super late morphs into super early, but I'd wager that a number of the folk we met in the early stages of our journey were on their way home after a fun night out. 

My cunning plan - that involved getting up at such a demented hour - was to try and get past Birmingham and the M6 before the traffic got ugly. I’ve been scarred by the traffic in that neck of the woods before, which is saying something for a Londoner. But I’m happy to report that, this time, my cunning plan worked brilliantly. So well in fact that we were on schedule to arrive 4 hours early for our sailing, which is just a smidgeon too early, even for a control-freak like me.

So I started casting around for other things to do, and hit upon the idea of a short detour into Conwy. My travel buddies were more than up for a little unscripted adventure that took us off our normal route.

Conwy Castle, Wales 

Ode to the Costa Brava poppy ...

If there's one flower that really makes my heart sing it's the wild field poppy. Here on the Costa Brava there are millions of them, all over the shop, dancing in the breeze, and looking splendid in the warm spring sunshine. To me they represent pure joy.

The Platja de la Fonollera i Mas Pinell ... a heavenly beach

The other day Emi and I were in Pals. We hadn't gone there for anything in particular. It had just occurred to us that it would be a good place to take the WonderDog for his afternoon stroll. As it happens Pals is the most amazing town you could ever hope to visit, but the thing is once you're there, inside the town, you tend not to look beyond its walls. Everything inside is stunning, so why would you? Well I was standing on the terrace by the 11th century Torre de les Horres waiting for Emi to finish buying a (toy!) sword in one of the tourist shops when my eye was drawn to these amazing islands, sitting on the horizon, just off the coast.

They were stunning in the afternoon sunshine. I was amazed as to how I'd manage to miss them before. I've been to Pals more times than I can count. I've wandered around with my camera clenched to my face taking photos of everything, but I've never actually looked outside of the wonderful little town I was visiting. And just look what I missed over there on the seaward horizon!

Emi and the WonderDog were amenable to going on a wild goose chase in search of the islands, so we all piled into the car and headed off in the direction of Platja de Pals, the official town beach, which is some little distance removed from the town itself.

Torroella de Montgrí ... now that's what I call a castle ...

Do you like to climb mountains?

I love, love, love the mountains. In an earlier pre-being-a-mum incarnation I used to do proper climbing with ropes and harnesses and all that jazz. Mr B, however, is not a mountain man. He's a city boy, hates heights and doesn't understand why anyone in their right mind would want to scale a mountain just to have to come down again. He doesn't get it. 

Ten year-old Emi, on the other hand, does get it. He loves the challenge of a good climb. At a recent family lunch, in the shadow of Montgrí, I casually suggested to Mr B and the in-laws that we should climb the mountain to work off some of the calories we'd just consumed. They all fell about laughing. What a crazy idea, but Emi was totally up for it. Like mother, like son.

And, here's the thing, just look what's up at the top of Montgrí. Now that's what I call a castle ...

Torroella de Montgrí Castle

The Octopus's Garden ...

Do you know the Beatles' song the Octopus's Garden ?

It's a real classic. Well here's the thing: I think I've found it. No, seriously, I know just the spot. It's hidden in the shallows in a rather splendid little cove, called Cala Pedrosa, where we like to go rock-pooling.

Cala Pedrosa, Costa Brava

 Do you see how clear the water is? And it's full of life. There are countless types of seaweed, creating dark underwater forests where the Costa Brava sun can scarcely penetrate. It's the perfect place for any right-thinking Octopus to have his garden in the shade.

Love locks ...

I'm not sure where, or when, this craze started. The first I became aware of it was when the newspapers reported that the Pont des Arts in Paris was in danger of collapsing under the weight of love locks that had been attached to it by starstruck lovers. They'd come to the bridge - literally hundreds of thousands of them - bearing padlocks on which they'd had their first names engraved. They then attached these padlocks to the metal structure of the bridge and threw the key into the Seine in a grandiloquent gesture intended to symbolise their unbreakable bond/ never-ending love for one another. Parts of the bridge collapsed in 2014 under the weight of all this sentimental nonsense, and during 2015 it was estimated that over a million further padlocks were attached to the bridge adding an extra 45 tonnes to its load, and threatening to make it collapse into the Seine.

Spring is springing ...

Here, on the sunny Costa Brava, Spring arrives a little earlier than it does back in London. And there are already lots of signs that things are heading in the right direction. In the evenings, after the day's work is done, there are more and more people taking a stroll across the sand on the village beach.

The South Wind, the Migjorn, has been blowing in from the sea bringing us foggy mornings and sunny afternoons, and carrying with it the promise of warmer summer days to come. Hurrah!

April Fool ...

Happy April Fool's Day!

Has anyone caught you yet?

I played a joke on Emi and Mr B yesterday afternoon. The WonderDog and I had gone off on a little saunter over the cliff so that he could attend to his afternoon toilet business. Such jaunts are commonly referred to here in Talk-a-Lot-Towers as Pooh Patrol, and we've even got a ridiculous little song we sing about going on Po-o-o-oh Patrol. The WonderDog, who is clearly a connoisseur of fine music, always recognises the opening bars of the song (as distinct from all the other silly songs we've made up) and gets himself ready at the door for the off.

Anyway, I digress. After our jaunt over the cliffs I came in clutching one of the WonderDog's pooh bags, that was bursting, absolutely full to capacity. It looked as though I'd been picking up after a bull elephant who'd spent the last fortnight with an intestinal blockage that had only been released that very afternoon.

Look what Maxi did! I said, holding my trophy aloft.

They looked at me ashen-faced. How could such a small dog produce such a huge quantity of poop?

And then Emi asked me to show him the contents ...

Well, the game was up. I'd filled it full of pine cones for lighting the fire. When it gets cold of an evening we like to have a fire in the sitting room, and the dried pine cones from those lovely Costa Brava pine trees, are the prefect things to get the flames started. And then, once it's going, they give out a lovely fresh pine fragrance that's become the very smell of home.

Still, my ruse was good while it lasted.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Gravity-defying trees ... and the myth of life-long fidelity in mandarin ducks ...

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky, Khalil Gibran

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd, 

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Okay, okay, I may be gilding the lily - or should that be the daffodil? -  a bit. In truth it's hard to do the lonely as a cloud thing on Ealing Common with the traffic thundering by on the Uxbridge Road, but it is just a little bit glorious out there at the moment with the wonderful mini-daffodils that are exploding with cheerful colour all over the grass. 

Harbour patrol ...

We'd hardly touched down when the Wonder Dog and I were drawn to the harbour. There's something irresistible about all those boats parked up, and bobbing around on the swell. I love, love, love the harbour. It's a strange, illogical thing this love affair of mine. I'm a rubbish sailor - always sea-sick, but I hanker after this place, and all these lovely boats that I have no desire to ever board and sail away on.

Home for the holidays ...

We've made it back home to beautiful County Tyrone for the Christmas holidays. And we're so grateful to have arrived safely. We had an epic ferry crossing from Holyhead to Dublin in really rough seas, which made us feel relieved to disembark and stand on terra firma without the horizon moving around chaotically with the rise and fall of the waves.

This morning the sun shone, and we rounded up the dogs for a walk around White Ness. It's actually called the White Lough, but Emi always refers to it as White Ness in the hope that one day it'll have its very own resident monster - just like Lough Ness in Scotland. Hope springs eternal  when you're ten years old.

Osterley Park's 7 swans a-swimming ...

I'm almost there ... I've almost got everything sorted for Christmas. It's been busy, but I feel as though I'm finally cantering up the home straight. Emi's been off on his Christmas holidays for a week now, and together we've got everything sorted from last-minute presents and Christmas cards, to hair-cuts and dental appointments.

And, powered-on by this new and relaxed sense of completion, we took the Wonder Dog for a gallop round Osterley Park this morning, where we met this lovely chap:

The Green Man in autumn ... a tale of renewal and rebirth ...

The other day I was wandering through the beech wood close to my parents' house admiring the wonderful colour of the leaves when it struck me that the Green Man of our pre-Christian mythology would have felt just a little bit uncomfortable with all these seasonal changes. He always seems to be depicted in his full-summer garb with green leaves in their prime.

The Gothic Temple at Stowe ...

As it's almost Halloween, and, as I'm getting into a really spooktastic vibe, I thought I'd share some photos of one of my favourite Gothic buildings, the Gothic Temple at Stowe. Isn't it a gem?

Gothic architecture and Halloween go together like Fred and Ginger or crackers and cheese in my book. And this little beauty from the 18th century looks like it was created as the backdrop to some blood-chilling tale.

Fungus fetish ...

It's been a good autumn for Fungi down here in the not-always-so-sunny South West of England.

Yesterday morning I spent a happy hour out in the garden taking macro shots of all the fungal goodness nestling in the grass. Now I'd be lying if I pretended to know the names of these beauties - or, even more importantly, whether I can eat them without poisoning myself. So it's probably just as well that my interaction with them remained one that was channelled exclusively through the lens of my camera ...

Like the sunshine after rain ... a spiritual journey

Isn't it wonderful when the sun finally appears after the rain? We've had a succession of  grey, wet days, down here in Devon. We've hunkered down and nested indoors, but yesterday afternoon the sun came out, and all of sudden autumn turned into something glorious again.

Only a day ago the field of stubble over the hill was a maze of maize. There's a ramblers' right of way that runs right through it, and it felt a little bit like hiking through a jungle. What a difference a day makes ... .

Beech hut ... Dorset style ...

And, nope, I haven't forgotten how to spell beach!

This beech hut is so named, not because of any close proximity to a beach, but because it's made of beech saplings, cleverly pleached and grown together to make the funkiest garden house I've ever seen. Apparently it was planted back in the 1930's.

Autumn's bounty ...

There's a lot to be said for starting your day with a stroll before breakfast. Here in Devon the farmers are ploughing the fields to plant their winter crops and the rich red earth looks as though it were chosen from a palette of perfect autumn tones to blend with the leaves.

And the very best bit of all this early morning shenanigans is picking an apple, fresh and crisp, straight from the tree. No other apple tastes anything like so good as one that's just been picked.