Ansó, 15 June
by Isabel Isherwood - 16:41 on 15 June 2017
Apologies for the long silence. I have been amassing photos but not finding time to write anything.
The spring has been mixed - lurching between rather cold weather with snow on the peaks and surprising amounts of rain lower down, and hot, hot days when the children all head to the river. Recently the heat has gained the upper hand and we are regularly topping 30 degrees, with frequent evening thunder storms.
The rain has transformed the landscape. When we arrived at the end of last August, the fields and verges were parched to white-blonde and the rivers were barely flowing. The trees gradually shed their leaves, and through winter the prevailing colours were grey and brown; only green was the dark dusty green of the pines. With the rain and the gathering heat, the vegetation has gained momentum. It began with small and scattered things – the hepaticas and hellebores, then cowslips and orchids and irises, and higher up as the snows melted and the soil warmed up gentians appeared, sometimes in incredible quantities.
The trees have all come into leaf, the grass has surged up so much so that the fields are almost glowing. Iona remarked the other day that the grass looked so juicy she wanted to try eating it. The neighbours’ vegetable plots are suddenly transformed into neat patchworks of potatoes, lettuces, tomatoes, beans and courgettes.
School has gone down to half days for the last three weeks of term, so after lunch all the children head to the swimming hole in the river just upstream of the village, and spend the afternoons jumping in off the rocks and chasing fish and splashing around – from the tiniest babies to the thirteen-year-olds. The older kids have their ‘own’ swimming pool a bit further out of the village.
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