Odds and ends from last year

This is a selection of photos from last year which haven't fitted in to any other posts, so I'm putting them all together here.

These are some photos which K took whilst out walking in the local area. This is the first Montagu's Harrier (Circus pygargus) which he has seen around here.

Turtle Doves (Streptopelia turtur). They are not so common any more, and are far more often heard than seen.

This is a beautiful shot - he heard a Bee-eater (Merops apiaster) on the other side of a shrub from where he was standing and managed to get his lens inside and find the bird without it seeing or hearing him.

One day last July whilst my brother was still staying with us there was a sort of 'pop-up' medieval museum over the weekend. First we had a wander round the old bit of town up on the hill whilst looking for the museum.

Above are old buildings which have been done up on the exterior (boringly!), whereas below, there are quite a number of houses still in their old state. Many show signs of different repairs/renovations over the years. I think this one below is a gallery of some sort.

A rather interesting window!

Above the door arch in this building is a stone engraved with the year of the building - 1617.

The museum was really interesting. It was held by a husband and wife team who were passionate about all things medieval and take part in reenactments. They had been collecting, and making, medieval clothes, arms and tools over the years, and were so enthusiastic about it they just loved sharing their knowledge with visitors.

Below are mostly surgeon's tools. Makes my blood run cold just thinking about it! Also, in that box in the front are coins, dating from Roman times through to medieval and beyond. I asked the lady where she got them from and she said she had found them in her garden in the village!

She also made chain mail, a very time consuming labour of love. The husband had an enormous display of weapons and small working replicas of things like trebuchets. We spent about an hour here in these two small rooms, as there was so much to see and the couple were so interesting.

Onto the garden - Southern Green Shieldbugs (Nezara viridula) were a bit of a pest on my tomatoes. They were swarming over one of the trusses of a cherry tomato piercing the skin of the fruit, leaving spotty marks on them and rendering the fruit inedible - none of them tasted nice after that. Here though, it's on a Garlic Chive flower, not causing any harm.

This isn't the adult which is more of a plain green. This is one of the later stage instars, which I think is very pretty.

Another pest, but I still like it, is the Geranium Bronze (Cacyreus marshalli) from South Africa, which lays its eggs on geranium plants.

This is a Tabasco chilli and it's the first time I've grown one, so I was surprised to see how the fruit grew pointing upwards instead of the usual hanging downwards. They were also extremely hot!

I didn't plant that Verbena bonariensis. When I planted the tomatoes and chillies which I bought as small plants from the garden centre, I mixed up a bit of our own home grown compost with bought compost. Suddenly I had tomatoes, parsley and verbena seedlings all growing in the pots! I potted up some of the Verbenas and left the rest in place as they were too close to the other plants, so we got a lot of free colour on the patio last summer! I shall be planting some of them around here and there in the garden. It's funny, as I had planned on buying some seeds this year to grow a few to add to the garden as they are rather short lived perennials, and my old ones need replacing. 😀

When the Autumn Lady's Tresses orchids (Spiranthes spiralis) appeared, I tried to take photos of some, but Harry decided to plonk himself down in front of the camera! Luckily you can see the flowering stalk in front of him.

A Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa) nibbling his/her toes!

Fast forward to this year and whilst doing some tidying of my shrubs recently, I finally came across my first ootheca, which is the egg case of the Praying Mantis! This one is an old one where the young have hatched out, but it was still an exciting find.

Now I just want to find one which still has living eggs/grubs inside so I can hope to find some tiny young mantises, as they look so cute!

I have moved some of the Wasp Spider egg sacs to safe places under shrubs or the hedge as I came across them whilst tidying up. K also cleared up the ditch this year as it was so overgrown with brambles and Old Man's Beard, and I remembered where the egg sacs were that I had found last year, so moved them too.

Provence Trip June/July 2023 - Part 7 Glanum, St Remy de Provence

There is a downside to having a Moho and that's not being able to park easily. Before we go anywhere I look on google maps for car parks and then look on street view to see if there is a height barrier (something you don't notice when you travel in a car). There is a lovely coastal town called Cassis that I've been wanting to visit for several years, but when we got there, the only parking I had found that seemed feasible was closed. And it had a barrier that I hadn't seen on street view anyway! So there was only one thing to do, and that was to keep on driving. I kept getting glimpses of multicoloured buildings beside the port and amazing cliffs with a castle below, but unless we find that there are any buses running there that we can park near, we sadly won't be visiting. 

So on we went to a place that had its own car park. These are the remains of a Roman town near St Remy de Provence known as Glanum. Nearby are two well preserved monuments known as 'les Antiques' from the 1st century BC. Below, the mausoleum of the Julii, dating from about 40BC.

And this monument is a triumphal arch.

Amazing stone carvings on the underneath of the arch.

The town itself is built around a sacred spring and was inhabited by the Salyens between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC, later falling to the Romans. The original town was destroyed and later rebuilt several times, during a period of on and off warfaring between the Salyens, the Greeks in nearby Marseille, and the Romans. Most of the remains excavated here are from the Roman era of the 1st century BC to 1st century AD.

Glanum was destroyed by Germanic tribes in 260AD and abandoned, with many of the stones being used to build nearby St Remy de Provence. The town became covered in deep soil over the centuries until excavations began in 1921.

The House of the Antae, a Hellenistic-style residence with a peristyle (columns surrounding internal courtyard) of Tuscan columns and a basin to capture rainwater.

Keith stealing a bit of Roman pottery! 😁

In the temple of Cybele there was an altar dedicated to the priestess Loreia, with a stone carving of the ears of the goddess, that she might hear prayers.

Restored columns of twin Corinthian temples in the first Roman Forum of Glanum (20 BC).

Below, in the middle where the two columns are, is the remains of the Temple of Valetudo, about 39 BC.

We had wanted to visit St Remy de Provence afterwards, but it was so hot that we were really weary by now so opted to just go to our campsite and chill out. It's such a shame when it's too hot as we end up missing out on doing things. We were lucky though that the real heat didn't appear until the last few days of our holiday.

On our way home we stopped at a motorway services which has views of the medieval Cité of Carcassonne.

The sunflowers were in full bloom so I took some photos with my phone as we drove the last ten minutes home after leaving the motorway.

Nearly home - our village up on the hill. Our house is off to the left out of the picture, although we can see it from here and from much further away, in fact.

And that, my friends, concludes our Provence trip last summer! Keith and I are planning to go back in September to see more of the mountainous areas in northern Provence, with, I'm sure, a few days at the big campsite by the beach again!

Provence Trip June/July 2023 - Part 7 Ports of La Favière and Le Lavandou

I love wandering around marinas looking at the boats. I like to imagine myself on a big 'gin palace' cruising the Mediterranean - when we win the lottery, of course! This is the marina at La Favière, which is the port of Bormes les Mimosas.

I liked the one just above best until we came across this huge catamaran below - it was bigger than it looks here, viewing it from the side. I wouldn't have let these two rough looking chaps anywhere near it though if it were mine! 😁

Looking across to our campsite which took up most of that hillside! It really is a huge place, but we were lucky that we didn't need to walk up the hill to go anywhere - we could get to the port or the bus stop by walking along a boardwalk beside the beach.

On Le Lavandou market day we visited the town afterwards. Beside the marina:

We ate out beside the marina and my dessert was the best I've ever had in France. A selection of Moroccan pastries, full of sugar syrup or honey and almonds. I scoffed them all - yum!

A wander through Le Lavandou. The Hotel de Ville is the town hall.

Plane trees - the bark is similar to Eucalyptus trees with their multicoloured peeling bark. They are excellent trees for Mediterranean climates with large shaded areas beneath.

Ditto the Umbrella Pines below for shade. Loved those colourful chairs too!

One day we revisited a garden open to the public at Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer just along the coast, but due to it being very dry in the coastal areas (unlike inland) there was very little flowering and it was rather disappointing. The views were nice though!

This is a lovely stretch of coast which is nothing like the built up areas further along the Cote d'Azur, plus when you get closer to Nice, the beaches become pebbly.

Most afternoons we had a swim from the beach by our campsite and even persuaded Keith to come in one day! I love our pool but there is just something so special about swimming in the sea.

Nearly finished - one more post to go!