Monkey's Blog - with a little help from Alice

Mostly flowers . . . 
[UPDATED FRIDAY 7 JULY 2017]
This will (eventually) be a proper Roundup of our recent holiday in Spain, at the marvellous "alternative" centre of Cortijo Romero. And No! It's nothing to do with Cowboys and cattle: that's yet another of your bizarre, human, often somewhat misleading figures of speech. Sigh.

Those of you who know Alice personally, may have already seen all her photos - edited, at last, despite some illness and other commitments. Whew.

This first one shows us on the sign at the beginning of the driveway. The next is at the impressive gates to the lovely grounds. [ Click on any of the images to see bigger versions. ]

We had a really nice room, with a screen door as you can see here, to keep out the nasty insects. Luckily they weren't around yet in May.

Being in the "quiet area" was a bit more expensive, but worth it, as Alice didn't want to be woken from her sleep by noisy revellers or midnight splashing and diving in the pool. Mind you, the birdsong alone was quite abundant most of the time, but relatively pleasant and almost soothing.

Ba just loved all the flowers, as you'll see below. We both enjoyed the fun of setting up our photoshoots, even falling off from time to time. We're pretty resilient, of course, not like you humans with your breakable bones and all that. [ This link is fun! ]

Alice also took a video of the delightful garden, to include the birdsong: but it's too big to look good embedded here (she tried) so she'll edit it for YouTube and put a link IN HERE later on.

[ Do click on this one, won't you. ] 

We did a bit of exploring on the first night. Ba was rather nervous clambering about, even though there were plenty of strategic lights around the place.

Just round the corner we came upon this delightful window box in the side wall of the laundry.

Even though a few were fading, the pink geraniums look even more dramatic in the flash, I think.

But it was good to get back to bed with a favourite book and a cup of tea before settling down. Poor old Alice has had some awfully bad insomnia lately, so she also did some catching up in the afternoons.

The next day she bought me a present from Cortijo Romero's own little souvenir shop. It's a real obsidian pendant. You'll have to guess what it's for. Clue: what's our favourite TV series? [ You'll find the answer at the end of this post - when we finally get to it. ]

Alice was here for a week of doing those Five Rhythms she's so keen on. She said the teacher, Jo Hardy, was really good, especially as some people in the group had never done it before, while some others were familiar with the practice but to varying degrees.

There's a great video, A Conscious Dance Practice, about the classes Jo used to teach in Devon, which shows you a lot of the actual dancing: it might even inspire you to have a go too.

We don't have the right sort of feet to join in, so we sat and stared at Alice's slippers (no footwear allowed in the Group Room) and looked over towards the enticing bright blue of the pool.

There was a much better view from the top of the roof, with sight of some really bright red geraniums by the stairway.

And down in the courtyard itself, we found this cheeky cockerel in a little niche. Someone had even given him a couple of corn cobs to peck at.

The pool looks very inviting indeed in the hot afternoon sun.

Alice did get in a couple of times after dancing, with a number of Ooo's and Aaah's. She said it was "most refreshing."

What she really meant was cold. But we reckoned that since our constitutions aren't made for water sports, we'd just enjoy lazing and looking.

Alice is somehat of a perfectionist (you must have already grasped that!) and doesn't like leaving odd-shaped spaces in this blog. So she's amalgamated some of her remaining photos to include as many as she can, but still avoid "filling in" gaps with unnecessary text. That process, of course, took longer than she anticpated, or you would have got this completed post much sooner.
I hope it's worth the wait.

Above is such a one, showing the Honeysuckle we sniffed on the way to the drying area. A shame we can't include the wonderful scent. But use your imagination! It's been put together with one which includes the mountains you would have seen in the background on the left, had you been with us.

And here we are, overseeing the hanging up. With the hot weather and the bright sunshine, everything dried really fast.

There are some beautiful knarled old trees in the gardens. This one is just outside the little room where the lovely Brenda gives massage to those who want to take advantage of this optional extra to their course.

Alice had booked her place as soon as possible: Brenda is very popular indeed. We waited at the tree for her to emerge glowing with pleasure and new relaxation.

One day during our stay, we made the walk to the neighbouring little town of Orgiva, where there's a market once a week.

There are some very pretty houses next to the road, with flowers beside them, or on the roof in pots. Looking back along our route, you can see more mountains, and pointed cedars against the sky.

The second is a shot of us looking at one of the many orchard gardens along the way. [ You'll need to click on it to see the details in both of them. ]

Further on, Ba just had to get up close with these bright yellow cactus flowers! It was quite a tricky job removing all the little spines afterwards.

Alice composed a jingle of a haiku for the occasion:

Though Ba finds it tickles 

She loves the bright cactus flowers

And even the prickles.

Not one of her best poetic creations, I'm afraid. . .

 .

The market itself was very busy indeed, so we didn't get out of Alice's little orange rucksack to explore, in case someone took a fancy to us and we were kidnapped.

When we got back to Cortijo Romero, and cooled down a bit, Alice tried on the amazing gament she'd bought at one of the shops in the town itself. 

And we took a proper look at a real, "live" orange growing on one of the trees in the orchard. Ba was suitably impressed.

Other items of interest in the grounds included this unusual statue, en route to the group room. It's in memoriam to one Alastair Macmillan. We don't know who he actually was, but the plaque at his feet adds Thanks for some serious fun! so we guess he was well liked.

Someome had left a little bird's nest on the figure's hands: we were very careful not to disturb it.

On our last day, Ba said a tender farewell to one of her favourite flowers outside our room: she loves even the very smallest. Aaah.

Above are the only two photos Alice managed to take of the resident cat: she nearly always looked away or ran off as soon as she sensed there was a camera around. The last one was sneaked when she was apparently asleep. We're terribly sorry we've forgotten her name.

Ah yes, you may have been waiting to find out about that obsidian pendant! Well, here's the answer.

Alice spent some time hunting for just the right background online, then editing the original photo. . . . so that I can valiantly ward off the White Walkers with my very own dragonglass dagger! If this is a mystery to you, have a look at the Game of Thrones Wiki.

If you've never seen Game of Thrones, or even heard of it, and haven't yet read any of the books, then all we can say is that we're sorry for you.

This has been a long blog post for us to create, so please be patient waiting for our next one.