MOON BOOTS AND BOUGAINVILLEA
The weeping willow is having a moment. It is so bright green and fluffy that is needs a different name, because there is nothing depressed about this tree. Maybe it’s the nightingales swinging on its lianas like mini-Tarzans, trilling away, doing their best to drown out the demented dogs next door. And while I know I wrote about the dogs and the birds yesterday, forty-five minutes of non-stop WOOFING earlier-on got my fingers in a typing tizzy.
But I must tell you about the willow tree, because it is spectacular, its long, graceful branches hanging down to the ground like the fluffy-furry Moon Boots my friend Caroline and I absolutely had to have circa 1978. Caroline and I thought we were the coolest, traipsing around school, leaving wet mucky marks everywhere like all the other cool girls who had them. I think I had black ones, and Caroline’s were brown and cream, or maybe it was vice-versa. Not that we were mega cool, although maybe she might have been a smidgeon cooler than me. I don’t think she blushed as much, anyway. One of the boys on the French side only had to walk by to set me off. I even blushed when I thought about him, or if someone mentioned his name. It was a capillary nightmare. Did you have that problem, blushing at someone who didn’t even know you existed?
I made some Serendipity Bird postcards yesterday on Canva, and felt both surprised and mega chuffed by my technical prowess when I pressed the Purchase button, so thank you @Cori Bren for the idea. Serendipity is a little bird I painted from a tea-bag stain last autumn, just before a four-month stretch of not being able to sit down, so everything had to be done from a reclined position. You can’t paint lying down, unless of course you’re Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, which I’m certain one glance at Serendipity will assure you that I am not. You can, however, write while sprawled out on the couch, or propped up in bed as my word count attests to, as does the state of my poor wrists, which are now crunchy and rattly after bending over backwards obligingly for months on end. Anyway, Serendipity has his own little poem, too, which I also managed to Canva onto the card. I just hope the font size isn’t too small to read.
Also, the lovely @Meg Oolders made me some business cards, which I will proudly attach to the bottom of all my emails as soon as I figure out how to do it. I thought I’d twigged it last night, and was all “ta-dah-check-me-out”, only to realise when I went to write the next email my computer said no. I’m sure some bright spark on here will be able to help me out with permanently attaching attachments.
Meanwhile, look how cute my business card is! Thank you, Meg.
The sun is out this morning, so I am sitting at the table in the patio, the rays prickling my arms and it feels quite lovely. The olive tree looks refreshed after yesterday’s rain, and the little reddish-pink pelargonium I bought the other day is twinkling with raindrops – unless it’s actually snail dribble, which I’m hoping it isn’t. I don’t think snails like pelargoniums. Snails have, however, loved many of the plants I’ve bought over the years, so it’s been trial and error, with plenty of errors. Although a few of the things I’ve planted around the patio’s olive tree are happy to come back year after year, I’m afraid I’m going to have to give up on my dream of having a beautiful bougainvillea; it gets too cold here in the winter.
At first I didn’t believe the people who told me that bougainvillea won’t grow here when we bought our house near Girona in Spain. How could they possibly not grow when they thrive half an hour away, on the coast? I was determined to prove them wrong; surely there was one perfect corner, one particularly sheltered spot I could plant one, wowing everyone year after year. Alas…
I’ve always, always wanted a house with a bougainvillea scaling its walls, like my friend Victoria’s old farmhouse up in the Santa Ines hills in Ibiza. Her house is an absolute dream, and not just because of the bougainvillea and the utterly lush plumbago. Of all the houses I’ve ever seen, I think Victoria’s is still my favourite. I say that, but whenever I’m there, I tend to bang my head on the low doorframes and twist my ankles on the wonky stone steps. I’ve even suffered a mild sprain getting out of her beautiful tadelakt bath which looks as though it’s been sculpted into the walls by a wild, eccentric sculptor. My goodness that place is pretty! It’s been featured in books about Ibiza, so Victoria is quite famous, you know.
Victoria and I used to live together when we were in our early-twenties and got married one day apart. We were quite naughty, but not naughty enough to get into big trouble. We would often call sick on Monday mornings, having had too much fun partying over the weekend. But nobody seemed to bother, even if we worked for the same company, and sat in close proximity! Victoria has a lovely shop in Santa Gertrudis, La Galeria Elefante, which I’ve written about many times, and in the summer I tend to live in her boho-flowy dresses. If ever you’re in Ibiza, do go and have a look. It’s a treasure-trove.
I’m driving to Barcelona tomorrow, to meet my friends and fellow Substack writers @Amy Brown, and @Tenaia Sanders. Tomorrow evening we’re going to an event at the Backstory Bookshop where two other Substack writers are giving a presentation. I really hope my body behaves so that I can do some walking around Barcelona. In the five years we’ve had a house here I’ve yet to do any real sightseeing or properly enjoy life. Those years left me slightly traumatised, and although I’m way, way better, I still don’t fully trust my body yet. The colitis is under control as long as I don’t eat certain things (such as pizza, unfortunately!), but my fibro pain still limits the amount of walking I can do. Nevertheless, hurray for IBD drugs that work, even if they are heavy duty and come with side-effects that I’ve gradually discovered over the last seven months.
Have a lovely Sunday!
With love and gratitude,
Francesca xx