CLOSE-UP

I have been neglecting my blog lately but I have two good reasons - one is that the A-Z Challenge used up all my blogging energies for a while, and the other is that I am concentrating on finishing the re-write about which I told my readers during the April Blog Slog.

Anyway, just to keep it ticking over, here are a few photos I took this week.

The first one is of course an estrelizia - strelitzia in the UK or Bird of Paradise flower, This is the most perfect one I've seen blooming on my morning walks recently.


I have also been experimenting with close-ups - the first photo is of poinsettia flowers that have appeared on last Christmas's plant which is now bursting into new life.

Then there's one of the OH's cherished chilli plants - this one starts out purple and slowly ripens through yellow and orange to red. The plant can look stunning with all the colours and the white flowers at the same time, but at the moment it looks a bit pathetic. then there's rosemary, a pretty red leaved thing and a succulent - I love the squareish leaves on this one.

 and finally, guess who had to get in the picture?

Turn your back for a minute...

 ...well, a month, to be fair, but they've been changing things while I was away.
Down in Las Galletas, a coastal village about eight kilometres from our home, the Government department "Costas" (Coasts) has been busy demolishing buildings that encroach on the beach.
That pile of rubble on the right was a two-storey villa, and the pink three-storey block of apartments is due to go soon.

Next to that is another weird construction with wonky walls which has been there at least thirty years. It's not beautiful, but presumably it has been somebody's home all that time.
Beyond that an Italian restaurant extends onto the rocks - how much of that will be demolished is anyone's guess.
We are all hoping that the tiny fishing cottages which have recently been converted to small holiday homes will survive - they were there long before Costas decided that the coastline should be cleared to "improve the environment" - or maybe, say the cynics, just improve the view for tourists? In other coastal villages whole streets have been demolished, leaving families homeless.

 Further along the promenade, two sewage outfall buildings remain untouched - although as workmen have been extending pipework out beyond the harbour for a year, maybe these ugly blocks are due for the chop eventually.
Who knows?
Meanwhile, this is the view from one end of the promenade - let's hope it improves soon.

And in our community gardens, two banana plants  which showed no sign of even a bud before I left, have produced flowers and bunches of immature bananas in a month - I knew they grew fast, but this took me by surprise.

So, like I said - turn your back for a minute and everything changes!

I'm a sun!

I offered to do a favour for a Spanish friend yesterday and she said, "Gracias, Liz, eres un sol". I presume that's the Spanish equivalent of  "You're a star." I do love languages!

I also like strange-looking plants. This one was an anonymous two-inch cutting a year ago and is now covered in orange bell flowers. Apart from the fact that it's a succulent I have no idea what it's called, but isn't it pretty?