Merry Christmas!

Nativity scenes are very popular in Portugal and this year the little town of Guia, famous for its chicken piri-piri restaurants, has a very interesting one that invites you to walk along its narrow streets between two churches.

You start here, then cross the  road and walk along...

And, to the left and further up you find the second church.

 

 If you like churches, you may like to visit my Portuguese blog, where I'm going to start a Sunday post featuring churches from different parts of the country.

 

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - December 2015

After some serious hassles when my free Windows 10 update from Windows 7 malfunctioned, I'm finally back to blogging.

This is how my garden looked mid-December.

I have been careful not to show you the grass. Fortunately, the gardener has been round with his lawnmower, so it's looking OK now. I asked him to cut back my damaged lavender but, to my dismay, it had to go completely as the old woody core was rotting. I guess all good things have to end at some point...

Next time the gardener comes, he'll be pruning the roses, cutting back the other lavenders and moving some plants. I'm afraid that I no longer have the time or the energy. 

This is just one of the plants that needs to move, at least into a bigger pot.

This is is all I have time for. 

See you all in the New Year for more gardening updates from my small Algarve garden.

 

 

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - November 2015

Welcome to my Algarve garden. I don't have much in the way of blooms after a few weeks of unusually wet weather for early November.

I have a few of these scattered around the garden.

This ground cover is happy after all the rain.

 My red hibiscus is still blooming but it's got weeds for company.

This lavender is still pretty but parts of it are very woody. The other one is overdue for a major cut back, either as soon as I have time or when my friendly gardener comes in to paint my gates.

And last but not least, a bush that flowers almost all year round.

I can hardly believe that a month has gone by. There has been so much work to do for school that one day just seems to merge into the next and the weekends haven't been enough for me to catch up.  

And on the subject of weekends,  on the 1st of November it rained so hard for a few hours that there was a flash flood in my back patio and the water was just millimetres from invading my ground floor when, fortunately, one of my neighbours managed to divert the course of the water - making it cross my carport and leave through the front gates! Downtown Albufeira suffered terrible water damage that day.

I have no idea if I'll have any blooms next month, but you never know.

And there are always blooms in the gardens featured on May Dreams Gardens. They are definitely worth a visit.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - October 2015

Hi, there. I'm late again to the garden party. These are the blooms I found in my garden on Thursday.

I think this photo sums up the look at the moment - it's a bit of a jungle. There are too many plants in a small space.  It rained at the weekend and the grass suddenly took to growing fast again. 

Thankfully, I found time to mow yesterday because it's raining again as I write this. Oh, and one of the wheels on my mower kept wobbling off so my wish that the machine would last until I had got rid of all the grass isn't going to come true. (sighs)

This lavender is doing well, which is more than I can say for the other one, poor thing. I am going to cut it right back (as the gardener suggested a while ago).

The summer was too hot for the roses but I still have a few blooms.

Now that the soil is workable again, I must find time to do some weeding.

 Under this bush I now have two pots and a tray of orchid backbulbs. I finally divided the orchids that had overfilled their original pots and am trying to get some of the backbulbs to root. I wonder if I will be successful.

And that's all I have for you this month.

Thank you to Carol, at May Dreams Gardens for hosting Bloom Day.

Roundabouts - 2

The resort town of Albufeira has many roundabouts. Apart from helping to control traffic, they also serve as reference when people are asking for or giving directions. But more about that another time.

Here is one of the newer and not too busy ones, near the beach.