MEDITERRANEAN FLORA, FAUNA & FUN

Fridge doors float! I discovered this via the bane of my life.. ...the puddle. Despite my claims to rationality, I'm kind of superstitious and I refuse to change the path of our evening walk. And that's a problem when it rains because of the puddle. Mostly, the puddle is completely dry, but when it rains sometimes it's so wide you have to find ingenious means to cross it through it, or sometimes there's a tiny little strip of mud on the side which you can kind of creep along. One of my ingenious attempts involved a fridge door. You see, a lot of builders throw all their refuse in strange places around the countryside so one day when it rained I happened to find a fridge door closed to the puddle. So I tried to lay it over the puddle to cross it, but much to my surprise I discovered... ...fridge doors float.

As a witch, I am of course an expert in herbs and plants, and it amused me greatly the other day when a certain man - desirous of my affection - reached spontaneously for a flower as we wandered the Camí de Ronda; I accepted it graciously, without mentioning that he had in fact picked me one of the most beautiful deadly poisons in the Mediterranean world: Oleander. Known in Latin as Nerium oleander, it was catalogued in antiquity by Pliny the Elder, who warned that even honey made near it could be dangerous, and its reputation only deepened over time. Roman soldiers were said to have died after roasting meat on oleander skewers, and in later centuries it cropped up repeatedly in cases of quiet, botanical murder, its leaves and sap containing cardiac glycosides capable of stopping a heart with unnerving elegance. Witches, naturally, knew this long before botanists did: dried, infused, or smoked, oleander was never a clumsy poison but a patient one, working first on the stomach, then the rhythm of the heart, and finally on fate itself. I do hope this admirer continues with his slavish devotion, It would be unfortunate to have to return the flower to him today in a different form. (ملاحظة إلى نفسي: يا يسوع المسيح، لقد قلتِ إنك لن تحاولي إخافة الناس في هذه المدوّنة — تذكّري أن تتوقفي عن كونكِ مخيفة إلى هذا الحد، أيتها الغريبة.)

Whenever I enter a party, I am not drawn to the dazzling, charismatic individual surrounded by fashionable companions and influencers; I always find my gaze going to the person who’s sitting on their own. Yes, I know — I’m such a stereotypical goth. Anyway… curiously, this seems to extend to the natural world. Every time I walk past the local supermarket in the summer there’s a whole bunch of ducks hanging out there. Today, however, all the ducks had moved on to the park opposite, while one lone duck had decided to continue hanging out. I paused and pondered this mysterious mallard. Firstly, you may be wondering why the ducks are hanging around the supermarket in the first place. That, at least, is no mystery. Ducks are hanging around the supermarket rather than a local pond for the same reason you are hanging out at the supermarket and not a local pond: resources. Ducks want bread. Supermarkets are full of bread. Customers have just bought bread. Customers like ducks, because who doesn’t like a duck. Customers like giving their bread to the ducks and how many ducks don't love  a free lunch... zero! As for the lone duck, I concluded there was no great mystery here either. According to a readily available chat bot, unlike certain other birds such as geese, the ducks have a far more independent slant, and sometimes a duck simply decides not to follow the group. His motives could have been many: perhaps he’d already eaten, perhaps the park didn’t appeal, perhaps he was enjoying a moment of quiet autonomy. Or perhaps, like me, he was just a stereotypical goth — cosplaying at being alone and miserable, while actually being perfectly happy that way.    

ME: "It's on my mobile, between my toes, in my crack, down my back, even round the rim of the bloody can. Sand everywhere." HIM: "Sand... mmmm... did you know that surprisingly, sand doesn't come from sea. I know that seems to defy everything we know and love about sand, but it mostly comes from rivers." ME: "What!?!" HIM: "Yeah. Most sand begins its life inland, locked inside mountains and cliffs. Rain, frost, time ... breaks rock apart. Then rivers take over, dragging those fragments kilometre after kilometre, smashing them together again and again until they’re ground down to grains so small they can’t actually be broken down any further.  It's like literally impossible. Anyway... that's when they reach the sea." And then... the ocean doesn’t so much create sand as finish it off by washing it back and forth, sorting it by size, and piling it up where land meets water." NAZ: “But I don’t see any rivers around here.” HIM: "That’s because you’re looking now, not then. On some beaches, sand was carried by rivers that still exist,  others by rivers that have shifted course, and some by rivers that disappeared thousands or even millions of years ago. Coastlines move. River mouths wander. Landscapes forget their own history. So  you don’t need a river next to every beach. You just need a planet that’s had rivers for a very long time. If you've ever wondered why Mars is full of sand..." ME:... "I haven't, but now you mention it... Don't bloody tell me it's because there used to be loads of rivers there." HIM LOOKING SMUG: "Exactly," ME LOOKING SMUGLY  AT NAZ: "Exactly." and what I'm basically saying is "See... I told you he was H.A.F"  

As a witch, I attract ceratin types of animals, so whenever I walk through the countryside I'm always coming across bats and rats and spiders and Black Cats. However, today I had the most extraordinary encounter in the area behind the city known as 'Bosques (forest) of Tarragona.' I was walking down one of those stonewalled paths so common to the province, when a flipping enormous snake crossed my path. It didn't stop to stare, it didn't stop to chat, it didn't stop to attack me, it just slithered right across the path and into some bushes opposite. Now like most people who spend time in the countryside I know there are snakes around but they are tiny. I mean they are like Fisher price snakes, not Hollywood anacondas. Which was why this snake was so unexpected. Naturally I whipped out my phone and did a bit of research. The chatbot told me The Montpellier snake is one of the largest snakes in Europe, regularly reaching 1.8–2 metres in length, which is why encountering one feels so confrontational. It’s fast, muscular, and faintly green or olive, blending perfectly with Mediterranean scrub. It feeds on lizards, small mammals, birds, and other snakes, and unlike many European species it doesn’t immediately flee — it often holds its ground, lifting the front of its body slightly as if assessing you. It’s rear-fanged and mildly venomous, but harmless to humans; what’s remarkable isn’t danger but confidence. Named after Montpellier, it’s a heat-loving, ancient-looking animal that moves like it belongs utterly to the land — which, unnervingly, it does. As you may or may not know, I love snakes sp this is one of the most special moments I've ever had on one of my walks. And in terms of the info, I found it fascinating that they eat snakes... ...whoever knew that it was a snake eat snake world.