I’m a good one for this: when I’m fortunate enough to bump into a new dragonfly species, I concentrate most framing and focusing whilst tending glibly to assume that any similar looking dragonfly in my viewfinder is another one of…

Yesterday, I forgot to mention that Sally Satnav had recovered from her little Pyrenean malfunction; she had lost satellites overnight, having been turned off, and re-acquired satellites again yesterday morning. All the way to Chartres, she was plotting our little…

At least, I think so. Today being day 2 our planned 3-day journey home, we set off from Foix at 8:00 AM, our destination for today being Chartres, 440mls/700kms north. 400 miles of our journey today would be on autoroutes…

Today was day 1 of our 1200mls/1900kms journey back home. Our first target was a motel in Foix ~460mls/740kms away. We forced Chris, Yvonne and Scamp out of bed at 6:30AM and hit the road at 7:00AM. Chris, very sensibly,…

As a self-confessed dragonfly obsessive, this was the main target of this trip to Spain. I had made e-contact with a specialist to find out where I might find dragonflies near our Jalon location and he came up with this,…

Following a little pre-trip research, I had a target in mind of a wildlife reserve called the Aula Natura de la Marjal de Gandia. However, today having been kicked off with a spot of  pilates -by Francine rather than by…

This trip through to Spain in August was inspired by several things. In no particular order, they were: to experience some proper Spanish summer temperatures; to see something of the Jalon fiesta (it’s a week long); to help our host…

When we were here at Jalon in Spain in early May this year, we spotted a pair of Red-veined Darters (Sympetrum fonscolombii) beside Las Salinas, a lagoon in Calpe on the coast. I was a little surprised because the water…

After yesterday’s scare with our engine-shaped warning light in the car, today when I started the car all appeared to be normal. I’m going to be nervous for some time. As this is our first visit in the midst of…

Today was always going to prove interesting because we would be travelling through a large chunk of Spain for the first time. As it turned out, it proved a lot more interesting than expected. We’d chosen our routes to and…