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MARCH EVENING.
El jefe has spent most of the week on his hands and knees creating a path through the space behind the bench, painting the wall and adding colourful tiles. We staggered back from the garden centre with bags of organic compost and horse manure and this will get forked in soon. The path has created little islands which make the whole area seem more manageable.
It was very peaceful sitting here at 6 p.m. yesterday. Charlie the chameleon showed up, caught sight of Yang basking on the pine bark and went motionless. When he judged it safe, he slowly made his way into the pampas grass. 
Now that there's more interest inside the beds, we've removed the aptenia cordifolia from the edging. El jefe will have to get down on his hands and knees again and make good with more bricks round the bench hardstanding. (Have you noticed as you get older, there's more grunting and groaning with these actions?!)
RAIN, GLORIOUS RAIN so much of it that our 1,000L water tanks from the guttering are all full. The recently planted trees and shrubs will be thankful and Gonzalo next door, who's been busy with his veg planting will be overjoyed. It's uncanny how he seems to get the timing just right - always rotivating and seeding before the rain. And what a deluge it was.
Now, here's August 21 birthday flower for Kathleen
and I hope she likes it. Notice I'm scanning whole pages now in case others who read this see their birthday and it'll save me more scanning. Kathleen (Kasey) seems to be a new blogger, has a range of arty-crafty interests and like many garden bloggers, is a very good photographer.
We were just moving a Poligala out of its root-bound pot to put in a permanent spot behind the new wall, next to the vine Gonzalo planted, when the heavens opened. We couldn't stop at that point and got drenched. Still, it was a good excuse to rush in afterwards, have a really hot shower, cuppa tea and relax.
NATURE GIRLOctober 21st, this is for you. I know this poem as an old Victorian song and didn't realise that the Elizabethan playwright wrote this famous poem. Enjoy.....
ARCACIA?? or something else? This shrub/tree is everywhere at the moment and I think it's gorgeous. I'd like to find a couple in the garden centres but never see them, yet they are wild in all places here. This one borders the wasteland at our nearest petrol station. 
Kate in Canada, who is an artist herself - here
has a very fine blog and this is her birthday flower, December 13th. Who these poets are in this floral birthday book, I have no idea: they do have the flavour of Victoriana though.
By popular request, here's November 20th for Colin
And July 2 for Carol
They have a lovely place in northern Spain and an interesting blog on Mediterranean Gardening
here
TRANSLATIONS.
Woo-hoo....am I thrilled - a translation widget! (I'm easily pleased, eh). Once again, I'm indebted to Colin & Carol at Mediterranean Gardening for their ideas on blog content. And it was so easy to add.
And this one's for Yolanda - how appropriate, Norway Spruce for kindness. 
If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing her garden blog, with scrumptious veg, wonderful felines and all-round good entertainment, visit her here
This is for Priscilla , who is in the USA and hasn't been blogging long... here.
Happy birthday again, Priscilla, for yesterday.
SUNNY SPANISH SCENE:
As we sat there drinking coffee at the end of a strenuous couple of hours filling the wall and planting, I thought this scene looked cosy. The urn in the foreground is waiting to be mosaiced in black and copper but it will have to wait a while as el jefe has another, more important one to finish off for friends. 
And here are the fruits of our labours - he decided to fix a few coloured tiles on the back of the wall to cheer it up. Gonzalo had a spare Moscatel vine for us, so appeared with his mattock, whacked a great hole behind the wall, shoved in the vine and now we don't know how we're going to train it and where when it'll go when it gets on the move. 
NORTH WIND:
Brrr, what a shock - a rare north wind has arrived, I can hear the bamboo wind chime clacking away outside and the temperature is very cool. Jasmine smell is being wafted elsewhere. Time to get the socks and thermals out again. We were tempted to remove the electric blanket over the weekend and decided against it, just in case.
Kate over on http://katesmudges.blogspot.com/ has a great book meme. Turn to a book you are reading , find page 123, go down 5 lines and include the next 3 lines on your blog. I have a big wicker basket of "to be read" , my current bedtime reading and a few favourites hanging around to dip into. This is an old favourite from 20 years ago when he started the project - "The Floral Birthday Book" by Bernard Carter. Each day of the year has a birthday flower, painted in water colours by Bernard, what the flower symbolises, and a poem.
Page 123 is for November 10th, a bay leaf for Faithfulness and the poem continues
Ah! You will - I know not when -
I shall nurse my love, and keep it
Faithfully for you till then.
by Adelaide Proctor.
My birthday flower is Clematis - Poverty - and Bernard very kindly included a bumble bee in the illustration just for me as he knew I loved them.
Thank you Kate for the interesting meme. Like you, I'll not tag anyone but throw it open to anyone who wants to join in on their blog.
THE SCENT OF JASMINE is flooding the house....mmmm. It's been such a glorious day that all the windows are open and oh it's bliss, very heady. Temperatures around 23C today. 
We popped to the garden centre for some of those mesumbrianthemum thingies - they had 6 left - and called in to Antonio's for tortillitas de camarones (little shrimp crispy pancakes), a mixed salad and a shandy. Heaven.
Now that there's more interest inside the beds, we've removed the aptenia cordifolia from the edging. El jefe will have to get down on his hands and knees again and make good with more bricks round the bench hardstanding. (Have you noticed as you get older, there's more grunting and groaning with these actions?!)
