Coroa de Cristo

This shot would have been more appropriate for Good Friday (but I wasn’t here to take it). No idea what this plant is called in English, but it’s local name is Coroa de Cristo – Christ’s Crown – because of the fierce thorns and the blood-coloured flowers.

Casting a jaundiced eye out of the window at 4:30 am after a bad night, spent partly on the sofa , I decided against waiting for the sunrise and dived back into bed. Emerging just before 9, I found HH had already boiled the kettle and prepared my breakfast – good man! Having mercilessly dispatched him to play golf, I pootled around all morning, mostly catching up on your blip entries. Had to smother myself in insect repellant for protection from evil mozzies and minute flies (their bites hurt)!

Actually walked with the dogs today, testing my knee on our long, steep drive, and survived. For the first time, I noticed an inscription on the new concrete path by the river – “Tragedy – 2011”. I think it must have been carved in recently, or surely I would have seen it earlier. I found it very moving – it’s near the spot where someone had painted the names of a family that died in the flood on a large boulder. The machines must have broken up the boulder, but I think it should have been left as a memorial. On the way home I took pictures of the way new vegetation has smothered the banks, hiding the concrete lining of the river, where just a year ago I was walking up the unconfined river bed surveying the desolation, crossing from one side to the other on stepping stones.