Blue Isle of Mull

Maybe I complain too much about the weather in Scotland. Because sometimes it is sunny and when it is sunny it is like paradise. And because the sunny days are rare, then these days are special. Because if it was sunny everyday, Scotland would be full of tourists. Maybe annoying tourists like those that go to the south of Spain and Portugal. With so few and precious sunny days, we can have paradise all for us. And it was paradise in May in Mull.

Pulses of all colours and shapes

Five ways pulses impact our world

1. Nutrition

Pulses are some of the most nutritious crops on the planet.

2. Health

They offer one of the best investments in your heart and overall health.

3. Climate Change

Their cultivation helps reduce greenhouse gases and provides increased carbon sequestration which is good for the planet.

4. Biodiversity

Pulses improve soil fertility and nourish crops planted alongside them.

5. Food security

They are a low-cost crop for farmers, they flourish in arid lands and have a long shelf life.

(in "Pulses. Nutritious seeds for a sustainable future, FAO, 2016)

Spring in Portugal!

In May, in Cambelas and surroundings, the agricultural fields are all full of flowers - poppies and daisies are the most common. A bike ride with the camera in the bag is the best way of capturing a great number of colourful fields which wait for the hay harvest period. 

Primavera

Ah! quem nos dera que isto, como outrora,
Inda nos comovesse! Ah! quem nos dera
Que inda juntos pudéssemos agora
Ver o desabrochar da primavera!

Saíamos com os pássaros e a aurora.
E, no chão, sobre os troncos cheios de hera,
Sentavas-te sorrindo, de hora em hora:
"Beijemo-nos! amemo-nos! espera!"

E esse corpo de rosa recendia,
E aos meus beijos de fogo palpitava,
Alquebrado de amor e de cansaço.

A alma da terra gorjeava e ria...
Nascia a primavera... E eu te levava,
Primavera de carne, pelo braço!

(Olavo Bilac, in "Poesias")

White and green Granita

So I don't forget: this is Granita Siciliana, a semi-frozen dessert eaten with brioche. Delicious!

Red, black, white, blue - Mount Etna

Climbing Mount Etna alone is officially not allowed. People need to be accompanied by an accredited guide that ensure their safety and direction. This happens because Mount Etna is an active volcano and in March lava was coming out from its entrails. The lava was so hot and the surroundings so cold that it felt like being close to a fireplace in the cold winter nights of Scotland. I went up with two students from Catania University as one of them was starting his activity as a guide. In the way up with met one of their friends that just had been hit by a stone from a lava explosion the week before. English tourists are usually taken up by 4x4 buses and some of them go on flip flops. Mount Etna is at 3,350m height and the closest city is Catania. The volcano slopes are very fertile and vineyards are popular, giving origin to the best (probably) wines of Italy. There are some myths associated with Mount Etna and this one is my favourite one:

"Persephone liked to gather flowers on the lower slopes of Etna and to dance with the nymphs on the plain of Etna. When Hades abducted her, he opened a crevice in Mount Etna as an entrance to the Underworld."

The abduction of Persephone by Hades (Homeric Hymns):

I sing now of the great Demeter

Of the beautiful hair,

And of her daughter Persephone

Of the lovely feet,

Whom Zeus let Hades tear away

From her mother's harvests

And friends and flowers—

Especially the Narcissus,

Grown by Gaia to entice the girl

As a favor to Hades, the gloomy one.

This was the flower that

Left all amazed,

Whose hundred buds made

The sky itself smile.

When the maiden reached out

To pluck such beauty,

The earth opened up

And out burst Hades …

The son of Kronos,

Who took her by force

On his chariot of gold,

To the place where so many

Long not to go.

Persephone screamed,

She called to her father,

All-powerful and high, …

But Zeus had allowed this.

He sat in a temple

Hearing nothing at all,

Receiving the sacrifices of

Supplicating men.

Purple heather for the heather ale

Heather Ale

From the bonny bells of heather

They brewed a drink long-syne,

Was sweeter far than honey,

Was stronger far than wine.

They brewed and they drank it,

And lay in a blessed swound

For days and days together

In their dwellings underground

But now in vain is the torture,

Fire shall never avail

Here dies in my bosom

The secret of heather ale

excerpts from the poem by Robert Louis Stevenson 

Green water in the river at Armathwaite

This little corner of Cumberland has an interesting corner for climbing. One of the routes even start from the river, in the water. Canoeists who were passing by offered a lift to other rocks but there was no need for that! There is also an old bridge crossing the river Eden. The writer William Mounsey (1808-1877) traced the course of river Eden from the Solway Firth to its source in Mallerstang. One of William Mounsey's enigmatic carvings in the banks of river Eden, dated 1852 AD, is:

To meet the Atlantic's boundless time,

See Old Ituna's waters glide,

As rolls the river to the sea

So time unto eternity.

Many colourful books in Wigtown

Wigtown is a small town in the region of Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland. It has loads of bookshops and cafes where books are sold. It is impossible not to browse for books in these shops and even more impossible to leave any of them without buying any book. Even when we think there is nothing there for us, the next minute prove us wrong and we find something worth taking home!

Golden sunset in Whitby

Whitby's story probably goes back to a Roman signal station and certainly dates to 657 when St Hilda founded the abbey for King Oswy of Northumbria in thanks for his victory over the heathen Penda of Mercia. The Synod of Whitby of 664 committed the English Church to the Roman instead of the Celtic rite. Both men and women lived in the early monastery, a renowned centre of learning. This is where the herdsman Caedmon was inspired to sing of Creation. The abbey was destroyed by the Danes in 867 and not refounded until 1078 by the Benedictines. It flourished then until its surrender in 1539. 

In The Shell Guide to England, edited by John Hadfield.