20. Spring album

Spring is sprung,
The grass is ris,
I wonder where my camera is!

That little ditty was imagined before the age of mobiles. Now no-one need lose that shot that proves he was there or that reminder full of colour and selfie smiles unless, that is, he forgot to charge the damn thing!

El Hierro is not grandiose like the Rocky Mountains. Its beauty is more intimate, on a more human scale, not only in size but also emotionally. It's not the unchangeable mountain reflected in an unruffled lake but the unpredictable response of life to the equally unpredictable elements life feeds on.

This year Spring is indeed strange. It was warm in January and the plums blossomed even before the almond trees. Then it was cold and windy and now the plums are blossoming again, rectifying their mistake. Our Wistaria brought out one early tentative bunch of blue perfume at least six weeks ago. Now it should be in full flower but it isn't. Just a few young bronze leaves. Then again, since October it has only rained less than a half of what it usually does by this time. Between them, the NAO, the Niño and Climatic Change are doing their best to promise us an interesting year, to say the least.

I'll be going out with my camera (if I can find it!) and my mobile over the next few weeks and will add new photographs to this album. So do come back to this post from time to time.

These fig trees will soon have tender green leaves and the first of their two yearly crops

The bright pink blossom of a peach reveals abandoned terraces

Clumps of some sort of daisy cover the high pastures in the west of the island

The giant dendelion endemic to El Hierro in the garden next to an almond tree with a few late blossoms

This year the most photographed field in El Hierro, at the turning to El Pinar near San Andrés

The birth of a new cane on a grapevine with a baby panicle which will become a bunch of grapes.

Small figs growing on last year's wood. These will be the first crop ripening at the beginning of summer. The second crop which ripens in autumn grows on this year's wood.

The wonderfully scented orange blossom. A suggenstion of fruit to come is on the left.

At last the Jasmin and Wistaria

The vegetable garden was earlier this time last year. Apricot in blossom on the left.

Freesias

Wild peas

10. The Weatherman's Nightmare

Perhaps not quite a nightmare, we're too insignificant for that.

In September we had 88 mm of rain on one day between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. My vegetable garden and the orchard looked like swimming pools - shining sheets of water with circles of ripples as the last drops fell. An hour later there was no water anywhere. It had all been absorbed by the light sandy soil that had been crying out for a good soaking for months. I went out and walked around the vineyard which is mostly on sloping ground. Even better than in the garden. In a year's time I'll be drinking that downpour!


I decided to have a look at the meteorological site on internet. The general forecast for the island was that we should be in brilliant sunshine with one or two fluffy white clouds. I checked the numerical models on the same site. Anyone with a little knowlege of our village, El Pinar, could have seen we were in for rain. Our rain usually comes on westerlies or occasionally from the south. Besides, a day or two before the sea had been white like a lake, a sure sign of rain. The Trade Winds were coming in from the northeast but there was an area of low pressure to the west and moisture-laden winds were curling round the west and south of the island. You see, the weatherman in his office in Madrid has in front of him a flat map with contours drawn on it, not mountainous El Hierro.

Curiously, in El Pinar we get almost as much rain in a year as East Anglia. But we get it in a very few days in autumn and winter. From April or May not a drop until September at the earliest. That's why almond trees grow so well, and apricots, grapevines, figs, plums and nectarines. All these need dry, warm summers and have long taproots that go down deep, or are grafted on rootstocks that do. The almond trees flower in February - the countryside is invaded by white and pink blossom, the petals falling like snowflakes and the air pungent with the scent of honey-blossom.

Almond trees in El Pinar