Fecundity

We arrived home safely today after 18 days away with the garden looking very overgrown. It's not the ideal time of year to be away. Meanwhile, in Cantabria yesterday morning, before catching the ferry, we revisited Santillana del Mar, that astonishingly perfect (and surprisingly unspoilt) mediaeval town with its stone-paved streets and luxuriant window boxes. Everything is way ahead in Spain (and Portugal), with the main problem access to water, as I hinted last week. The smallholders of our village open and close the channels diverted from the mill stream by an elaborate dance movement, so giving life to their maize crop. We just turn on the hose.