March 5, 2025.
On Sunday, March 2, I had a very special and magical walk. Here’s the account of it which I wrote a couple of days later.
It’s been raining for days yet for some reason this has made me want to put on my boots and jacket and go out and walk up the road and get wet and energised. So I’ve planned to walk once again down the track where in winter I used to go and sit and read in the afternoon sunshine until one day a friendly German strolled down and told me he’d bought it. After that it felt like sitting in some else’s garden. The first spring here I often walked the track as it was full of orchids and lavender. They inspired me for a spring thread collection. The next year the sheep grazed it and as far as I was concerned it was ruined. And then last August it burnt.
But now it’s full of plants, like all of the hillsides after the winter of rain, and I’m pretty sure the jungle of brambles way down at the bottom will have gone in the fire. So it should be easy to get down and with all the bushes and undergrowth burnt I won’t have to worry about hidden wild pigs suddenly appearing. Despite the clouds on the tops and a grey sky I put on my boots and jacket, decide against a bottle of water, pop a small cheese and rocket sandwich and some dates in my pocket and take hold of my trusty stick – a solid tall, wooden walking stick that comes up to my shoulder with a savage pointed metal end – which makes me feel like a shepherd.
I’d only just got up the road when a thick band of rain rolled in from the sea up the valley and merged into the clouds on the mountain tops. I almost turned back but I’m so glad that I didn’t. On the bend in the road, where you can see down into both valleys, the castor oil bushes, which escaped being burnt as they were right next to the tarmac, are flowering. Clusters of deep plum spiky pom-poms opening out into puffs of creamy fluffiness standing proud above the new plum leaves which will mature into green with their distinct deep red veins. A few steps further are the black shrivelled corpses of my two favourite fig trees, a mass of blackened branches but yesterday I noticed tiny spots of green on the bigger tree, little bits of green dotted throughout the branches. I really couldn’t believe it, I had thought that if there was any regrowth it would sprout from the base. Still on the road I spy what looks like a group of freesias, pale pink and creamy white trumpets. I’ve never seen them before, no idea if they’re wild or perhaps someone just threw out a pot and they’ve grown and multiplied.
And so I’m on the track, the shiny chain at its entrance has gone. The rain is abating. Long grasses and thin stems of lavender with tiny bright purple heads line the path. There are plants everywhere, the ground is covered in shapes and forms in myriad shades of green, abundant, exuberant, all glistening in the rain, shining despite the grey sky. I walk on enchanted by how the burnt landscape is recovering. Yes the almonds are still blackened, trunks and limbs rising up, broom branches bow in graceful arches of black and brown, but look carefully and greeny grey spikes of thin leaves are growing from the base. They’re not dead.
I pick my way carefully. There are rocks strewn about, I imagine from the fire, and then amongst them I see what on first sight seems like brown grasses and then I notice they are delicate stems of flowers. I’ve never seen them before. They look akin to bluebells, yet more delicate, the same shaped flowers opening along the stem one above the other, slightly arched, looking shyly down and such a beautiful soft brown. I stand up again, thrilled by my find, wondering what they might be.This was always a special track. It was where I first saw harlequin butterflies. I look down the slopes into the valley below and all the way down to La Herradura and the sea. There’s smoke rising from bonfires on the other side below Rescate. The green terraces in the soft, grey rain make the landscape look like Japan or China. Here and there pale creamy roads wind in sinuous lines then vanish into the hillsides. Difficult to imagine how all of this was black in August.
The slope in front of me, the one the path meanders down, is covered in woad, rosettes of spinach green leaves with spires of the palest yellow flowers. This wild woad is only knee high, or less, not the towering stems of woad I’ve grown in the dye garden. Here the towering stems belong to giant fennel; mounds land locked seaweed fronds with sculptural forms rising into the sky. I wish I’d brought a note book and pencil to sketch their shapes.
The path is getting trickier. I’m glad of my stick. The earth is red, my mind fleetingly considers a future mud dyeing project but then is called to the overturned ground, signs of pigs rooting and travelling through, and a brand new almond sapling already taller than my knee. I look around. There’s a line of burnt almond trees, but look carefully and there are new almonds growing out of the rocks sprouting next to the blackened trunks. More resilience. And then I see the splash of red, a curled up poppy. I spy more of them as I descend, lush foliage a soft grey green with a tint of blue, all the flowers curled tightly against the rain.
And now the path requires all of my attention. So much for me thinking this was going to be easy. Between the fire and the various torrential rains we had during the winter the path has become a collection of fissures. I can see the dirt road at the bottom. I’ve come too far to make turning around an option – and it’s uphill. Eventually the path bends and transforms into a crevasse. The only option is to cut across, off the path and across the land. The ground is friable, it looks solid but even large stones move as I try to use them as footholds. The last few metres I end up sliding down on my bum. I’m back on what is more or less the path, really a route of bare rock, and decide I probably won’t be doing this again.
I make it to the dirt road, what a pleasure to be able to walk, to stride along without picking a spot to place my foot. My footsteps sound strong, in time with the slight thud as my stick hits the ground.
There aren’t so many plants to look for here and there’s still a good stretch before I’m home. The road skirts around the southern side of Cerro Pimient. It’s well used and the gravelly surface is flattened. I’m heading for a semi-circle which looks out across the valley. Here I sit on my jacket on the wet grass, dangle my legs down the bank and take out my sandwich. The rain has passed through though everywhere is still grey and the mountains are lost in clouds. Little pieces of stray cloud float along above the straight plumes of bonfire smoke. The valley is silent, not a breath of wind. I sit and look and marvel at just how green and alive the hillsides are. I remember the fire’s devastation, how this landscape before me with its steep slopes made me think of black, slag heaps of coal. And look at it now, renewed.
I start the last bit home, not expecting to see any more flowers and then there they are, bright blue gentle spikes of wild lupins. So much smaller and more delicate than their showy garden cousins. A blue which is brighter and more luminous in the dull grey light. A blue full of joy to bring a smile and make your heart sing.