Wow, three years of blogging! How the time flies when you are having fun!

Three years ago today, I published my first blog!  The time has just flown, and when I first started, I expected to run out of steam in a few months!  

Thanks to blogging, I have seen so much more of not only the Charente, but everywhere we have recently visited.  Having camera in hand makes me so much more observant, and I now notice things that in the past would have gone unseen!  In reading blogs, I have also taken tours through other people's eyes to almost all the places in the world, and ones I am unlikely ever to visit in person.  Thank you everyone for this, but I must single out  three blogs for   special praise; to Gaelyn, who has given me the finest views of the Grand Canyon I could ever expect to see, and also to Joan and Graham for keeping Africa alive for me.  There are others who doubtless deserve mention, but these three have been quite exceptional for me. 

I have made friends all over the world; some I have met, and others I keep in touch with by email and hope to meet one day.  When I have not been feeling well, people I barely know have been there for me, and when I feel like taking a short break from the computer, all my followers and vitual friends are there when I return.  Thank you everyone who has made my blogging experience a great one and I hope to be at it for some time to come.

For the past month I have been posting about our trip to Casablanca, so here are a few of my favourite photos that I have taken over this period here in the Charente.

09/01/13 I saw this gorgeous specimen parked outside our bank.

11/01/13 One of very few sunsets we have seen this year. It is mostly cloudy and raining!

14/01/13 While on the highway to Angouleme, being followed (temporarily!) by a Porsche, our favourite car!

and the same day, the flooded River Touvre on the outskirts of Angouleme.

16/01/13 Friends to dinner, and at last I had unpacked the decanter that my parents had bought many years ago in Mozambique. Probably red and white wine would look better but I was drinking Rose so......

20/01/13 We had a luncheon in the local village and decided that taking the car out was too risky, so we used shank's pony instead!

Same day, looking through some trees. Wonder when this cart last had an outing?!

24/01/13 A very cross goldfinch seeing off a blue tit at the feeder.

25/01/13 The River Son, not far north of us, is normally a quiet stream, but has now burst its banks.  The rain just does not stop!

26/01/13 A macro of my flowering orchid; a birthday present a couple of years back.

27/01/13 Raindrops keep falling on my head.........

28/01/13 During a break in the rain, I was walking around the garden trying to find a subject for a photo, when this very tiny fly landed right on the moss that I was looking at. Right time, right place!

minutes later, this goldfinch posed perfectly for me.

29/01/13 I noticed that there were some signs of apple blossom looking 'spring like'.

30/01/13 The church at Suaux seen from the entrance to the Mairie.

and on the way home, we saw this Norwegian Fjord horse in a waterlogged paddock.

31/01/13 I was fascinated by this 'rose' like fungi growing on the wood in the woodpile. 

A great tit poses for me.

02/01/13 The church in La Rochefoucauld

and the supermarket,

while the sky outside suddenly turned black.

Arriving home, we appeared to be in the eye of the storm!

04/02/13  Finally, photos of two blue tits and....

a great tit, waiting patiently for his turn at the feeder!

See also - My Life Before Charente Updated 08/02/2013

and my daily photo diary at http://photodiarydps.blogspot.fr/

Christmas in Casablanca Part 1

Firstly, thank you so much to everyone who sent us Christmas and New Year greetings. They were much appreciated!  I hope that you all have a wonderful 2013.

We flew out from Bordeaux with Royal Air Maroc on Tuesday 18 December 2012. We had an easy motorway drive of 90 minutes to a well organised airport.

Flying via Toulouse airport (a 30 minute hop) to drop off well over half of the passengers, it seemed, and pick up the same number; mostly Moroccans who obviously worked in the town and were returning home for a break. This plane below is a BA aircraft in strange and unattractive brown livery. Not one of their best ideas!!

We arrived in Casablanca to a busy airport. No sign of our  transfer driver - 2 phone calls and 45 minutes later he appeared.......

We had dinner on the plane and as it was quite late on arrival at the hotel, we just made ourselves at home and had a good night's sleep.  We woke up later  than planned, and ordered a continental breakfast in our room at no extra charge. It was delicious; the French patisserie skills have been well retained.  We then decided to take a 20 minute walk down to the seafront, where the main city attraction is the really stunning   Grand Mosque Hassan II. It is the seventh largest Mosque in the world see HERE. It is right on the shore, as you can see, but the beach is rocky!

The craftsmanship and design of the mosaic work is most beautiful.

Looking across the bay to the d'el Hank lighthouse. It's set away from the town  -the perspective makes it look as if it is amongst the houses!

An interesting hand painted tower seen on our walk back to the hotel. Note the traffic lights - all up in the air; makes it difficult for pedestrians to know when the traffic is about to stop!

We tried a Spanish restaurant for dinner the first evening. It was well recommended on Trip Advisor, and although the food was excellent, the décor was stark white, all hard surfaces and there was simply no atmosphere at all.  It was also fairly expensive to our minds and we decided that one visit was enough, despite its good rating! We did have to laugh, though, at the waiter trying to uncork our wine.  Holding the bottle upside down, she eventually managed to screw the opener in part way and then break the cork off.  After a long discussion with her boss, over by the till, she came back with a new bottle which she successfully opened, but also holding it upside down!  We had ordered  Shiraz and the very first bottle that was brought to us was  Syrah. With a head shake and a shrug of the shoulder, we were told it was the same!  [Note: I think most of Europe and the USA calls it Syrah while South Africa, Australia and Canada call it Shiraz.  We are used to South African Shiraz which (to me) does not taste like the French Syrah.  I guess the country makes a difference.]  We did eventually end up with the required Shiraz which was on the menu! For all that, the fish soup we both had, was delicious, and although my fish main course was pretty average, Nigel's steak was very tender and cooked to perfection.

The next day we were up in time to make it to  the breakfast room and we  were offered a typical Moroccan breakfast.  The baked eggs with bits of dried shredded lamb  were quite delicious, but we were not so sure about the 'crumpet' with syrup or the folded "crepe", which was decidedly chewy. There were plenty of rolls and croissants as well, so we did not go hungry!

Finding our way around Casablanca was not that easy.  Despite having an excellent street map of the town centre, very few street signs seemed to have survived from the French era!  Most had either faded completely or been removed! Here is one of the very few that we found.

It was wonderful to see tropical flowers around in mid-winter; this crane flower (Strelitzia reginae) brought back wonderful memories of South Africa, where we had them growing in our garden.

Also the hibiscus

As for the smells in the supermarket, around the spice counter it was quite mouth watering.

On the second day we visited the Cathedrale Sacre Coeur.  This was obviously a beautiful place to visit in earlier days; a Roman Catholic edifice, no doubt built under French auspices, set in what has become a completely Muslim country. The main building with stunning stained glass windows looks amazing from the outside, but it sadly it is now neglected, stripped bare of all fittings and a breeding space for pigeons.  We gather that they do have the odd exhibition here, but to us it just looked quite derelict.

 

The wonderful windows

At the back of the church, if you look closely at the top of the photo you can see some of the pigeons at rest!!

Hope you enjoyed this change from the Charente - more to follow, so stay tuned!!

 

See also - My Life Before Charente Updated 10/01/13

and my daily photo diary at http://photodiarydps.blogspot.fr/

Catching up with the Garden - Free Promotion

Here are a few photos showing how my garden is progressing after its very slow start, following the coldest winter in about 60 years.  The winter was followed by a late frost in May, which took out almost all the blossom on the fruit trees. The cold snap also meant an absence of bees! I thought that the quince had not produced any fruit, but I have managed to track down a few, in between the leaves and all very high up.  We also have one mirabelle plum tree with some fruit on it, while the other 3 are bare!

The 'Mushroom Garden' has taken ages for anything to flower in it, but the lavender is looking good, together with a few yellow calendula.  Because this bed is in full sun, I have not planted anything which needs too much water. There are a lot of cactus and succulents planted around the perimeter of the bed, but they are not yet big enough to be noticeable in the photo.  Next year I hope they will all multiply!!

In other parts of the garden there are various flowers in mixed beds

 The top two are  cosmos, the left hand one with a bee in the centre.

Bottom left is a shot of the cactus flowering in the 'mushroom garden' and bottom right is hibiscus.

 Love-in-a-Mist on the left, Lavender top right and the flowers of the herb oregano  bottom right.

Sunflower on the left, calendula top right and courgette (zucchini) bottom right. The birds have eaten most of the sunflower seeds!!

Climbing rose top left, pinks top right, zinnia bottom left and my unknown rose  with the amazing perfume bottom right.

Various Zinnia

My Stargazer, which happily survived underground in the cold of winter and it is now  putting on a beautiful display, which will last for a week or so.

Hydrangeas at the back, partly hiding the neighbour's horrible barn wall (!!) with what I think are single chrysanthemums in front, and a few lone poppies.  The insects really love this bed!!

A bed of calendulas, zinnias, cosmos,with pampas grass at the back and a small holly right in the front. We cut and burnt back the pampas in the spring, as it was getting too big - all now under control!

Apples top left,there are a very few this year, grapes top right, hazel nuts bottom left and we have at last a few small figs, bottom right.

Round courgettes top left, Italian plums top right, pepper bottom left and round yellow courgette bottom right.

Haricot beans, as they are called here in France (French beans in the UK) on the left, marrow top right and chard bottom right.

A bed of courgettes (zucchini) and pumpkins taking up at least half of the vegetable garden and climbing the anti-rabbit perimeter fence. They are really running wild in the sun!! You can see some haricot beans between the two.

 

See also - My Life Before Charente updated  04 August 2012

Free Promotion from 6 August 2012 until 9 August 2012

The following weeks of the next part of my life story I have put on Kindle and you can obtain it at www.Amazon.com or www.Amazon.co.uk I will however continue writing it on 'My Life Before the Charente' as well so that the blog is not interrupted. 

It can also be downloaded to computers, smart-phones or tablets see Here