We had been put in touch with a Monday walking group, a group led by Helen who organizes walking holidays under the banner of Balanced Life Holidays. fancine had made contact and we were both keen to join in but on the day poor Francine needed to seek some medical assistance so our  car was spoken for. However, a friend offered me a lift so I could go and join in.

We met at nearby Parcent at 09:00, when conditions were decidedly cool, before driving up over the Col de Rates and into Tarbena, where the walk was centred. We set off in cool sunshine but the initial ascent up to the first peak, topped by a fort, soon warmed up both legs and lungs.

It soon began to feel good being back out walking again. The last couple of years have been a little troubled vis-a-vis walking, first with myself suffering from an 18-month attack of plantar fasciitis, followed by Francine damaging an Achilles tendon. I now always add a Scholl gel insole to any new shoes or boots and Francine still has to be careful about choosing her footwear. At last, though, we think we’re both up for it again.

The climb was worth it for the views back over Tarbena. Apologies for the crappy phone camera picture …

… [note to self: which I really must set back to 16×9, I hate that 4×3 nonsense.]

That first section was a there-and-back job with us descending back into Tarbena via the same route. We then struck out on the opposite side of Tarbena to ascend another small peak with similarly impressive views. I was taken by this sort of buttress-shaped rock formation seen across one of the orchards as we worked our way to the ascent.

Along with us, the temperature had now climbed enough for me to discard a fleece in favour of a cover-up shirt. It was, of course, necessary to sit together in a bar enjoying a refreshment. 😉

‘T was an enjoyable walk in a new, friendly company, an experience that I’d be keen to repeat. Hopefully, Francine will be with us next time. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for good conditions next Monday.

On 22nd December, the day after we arrived in Jalón, a search along the local river produce half a dozen or more Darters still active in the warm winter sunshine. Some debate ensued in a Spanish interest group and I’ve finally settled on the decision that these late season fliers are Common Darters (Sympetrum striolatum).

This identification makes sense. The Common Darters are the last on the wing in the UK where they often persist into November and occasionally, if conditions are good, into December. Such was definitely not the case this year.

In 2016 [Xmas 2015 trip] I did find a few individuals flying in Jalón on January 3rd, which was then my latest ever European record. Today, on January 4th and with an afternoon of bright, warm sunshine, I couldn’t resist another look along the local river to see if I could push that date a little further.

The first two spots where I had encountered them before Xmas produced nothing. I continued to draw blanks at the final two spots until, as I had given up and was returning, I spotted a lone male perched and hunting from a sunny stem at the ford where ovipositing had been going on previously.

Here he is. He even posed advantageously. He looked a bit lonely, possibly the last of the few, though there may well have been others that I’d missed. This handsome character now becomes my latest European record.

It was a slightly breezy but, having found odos still flying at Jalón shortly after we’d arrived, we thought we’d go and check out one of our favourite haunts, the Marjal de Pego-Oliva. At this time of year, the fun is not so much in the species one finds – there’s really only one likely – but seeing just how long end of the season can be stretched.

We found no signs at our first stopping point, so continued to the main parking area and took to our feet. As we were walking along the initial stretch of the river, which had begun by looking distressingly quiet, one dragonfly zoomed past us only to disappear over the reeds. It looked like a female, brownish, and was in all likelihood a Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum). It gave us cause to continue, though.

We saw nothing more along the river, but conditions were less than perfect, being very breezy. We struck out into a reeded area – well, bamboo, really – along a boardwalk where conditions were a little more sheltered. Francine spotted something fly but we lost it in the confusion of vegetation. Further around the curved boardwalk conditions improved further and we spotted several dragonflies basking on the warm boards. Bingo!

These were clearly Common Darters which rated as a new species on my list for this location. Happy camper.

One of our first purchases when we arrived in Jalón on Thursday 21st Dec, was the main event for our Christmas dinner. There are several pleasant things about running away from a British Christmas, not the least of which is the much lower key affair that Christmas is in Spain. From a culinary point of view, though, it’s also good to get into a country where more unusual [for us] food items are available. A traditional Christmas dinner in Spain tends to centre around sucking pig. They are available prepared and packed in all the supermarket, both frozen and fresh. Fortunately, since a whole sucking pig would too much for us, even though our friend Jim would be joining us, half sucking pigs, split lengthwise, are also available. We found a suitable looking fresh one with a best before date of 26th December so we didn’t need to freeze it. He was 3kgs and 28€ but, hey, it’s Christmas.

Christmas Piggy 2017 was a bit larger than we’d attempted before but fortunately he just about fitted the almost useless oven. [Note to self: if we ever start spending longer here, we should buy a better oven.] I sat him on a bed of vegetables – celery, carrot, parsnip and onion – mainly to keep him off the bottom of the thin roasting pan and stop him burning; they weren’t going to be edible after 2½ hours. Here’s Christmas Piggy wearing some SPF 50 ear covers to stop them burning, too.

Following a random recipe, I also put some water around the vegetables which would “help keep the flesh soft”. It did. I have a feeling that it also kept some of the skin soft, which was a shame. One of the delights of a roast sucking pig is crisp, wafer thin skin. We did have some but I think last year’s attempt sin agua worked better. Anyway, here’s Christmas Piggy after 2½ hours sporting an intense Spanish sun tan.

While Christmas Piggy was relaxing, we demolished blinis topped with cream cheese and a selection of smoked fish: tuna, cod and salmon, all decorated with a little red fake caviar to give them a festive look.

Having next demolished a good chunk of the now relaxed Christmas Piggy, we set about seeing off Francine’s excellent Tiramisini. She first made those last year and they’ve become an instant favourite. Yummy!

Finally, some cheese followed by a brandy or two to settle the stomach.

Un Feliz Navidad. 🙂

That’s what I call my little December friend in Jalón: Sympetrum conundrum.

For a few years now, I’ve seen a Darter at a few points on the river that flows through Jalón. The first time I saw it was on 23rd December one year before we had bought Casa Libelule. Since then I’ve seen a red-bodied darter a couple of times in December, once even on 3rd January. Initially, it looked to me most like a Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum).

After my initial sighting, earlier in the year I’d seen and clearly identified the Desert Darter (Sympetrum sinaiticum). This species looks quite similar to the Common Darter but for a couple of dark markings. I wondered if my suspect might be the Desert Darter somewhat changed, being more advanced in age in December.

Now I’ve seen it again but this time with a different wrinkle – this time I saw a tandem pair ovipositing. I snagged a couple of less than perfect in-flight shots. To me, the male didn’t look quite right for S. striolatum and the female certainly didn’t, being largely grey, Neither looked quite right for S. sinaiticum, either. My so-called brain worked overtime and wondered about the Vagrant Darter (Sympetrum vulgatum), in this case it would have been the Spanish subspecies (S. vulgatum ibericum). There are significant differences between S. v. ibericum and a regular S. vulgatum, in that it’s even more similar to S. striolatum. Very confusing.

Without trapping and examining, particularly the genitalia, differentiation gets quite difficult between some species. After due consideration and consultation with others more knowledgeable than myself, much as I’d like to have snagged a new species, I now think my conundrum is “just” a Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum).

Enough scientific mumbo-jumbo, here are my Spanish friends still on the wing and ovipositing on 22nd December.

In our modern world one can clamber onto a crammed cigar-tube of a jet aircraft and swap the cool winter clouds of the UK for the relatively warm sunny Mediterranean skies of the Costa Brava in a little over two hours. The process is so quick, even allowing for the now slow immigration process thanks to the invention of infernally inefficient automated passport reading machines, that one would hardly know one had changed countries.

Travelling in a slow and leisurely fashion makes for an entirely different psychological experience. In the days of Jules Verne and Around the World in 80 Days, travel required effort and took so long on slower forms of transport that one knew one was in a very different country. Our journey to Spain this time, running away from what would hopefully be the worst of the British winter, provided us with a flavour of that older world.

We’ve travelled on the ferry from Portsmouth to northern Spain before, always to Bilbao. This time our booking had us entering Spain through Santander instead. The timings of our sea crossing made us do things a little differently.

Our ferry departed Portsmouth at 08:45 on Tuesday 19th December. Checking in at 07:00, we could, technically, have awoken early on Tuesday, left home at about 04:30 and been fine. However, relying on British December weather not to intervene and make us miss that ferry was a little too risky so we chose to travel down to Portsmouth on the afternoon of Monday 18th, staying in a handy-dandy Travelodge just two miles from the port. Heck, I even treated Francine to a meal in the adjacent Toby Carvery on Monday evening. Do I know how to spoil a woman or what?

Other than scraping the frost off the car’s windows, Tuesday morning’s departure was a relaxing, unhurried affair. We checked in, moved from one queue [line, for the benefit of Amerispeakers] to another and eventually boarded Brittany Ferries Baie de Seine. The Baie de Seine is not a fast ferry, taking 28½ hours to reach Santander. [More modern bateaux do it in 24 hours.] One can do an awful lot of Sudoku puzzles on such a journey. Such a journey may be verging on the tedious but it is relaxing, especially being able to retreat from Joe Public to the privacy of ones cabin. We docked in Santander at 14:15 on Wednesday 20th December.

The boats on this route are not modern RORO [roll-on-roll-off] ferries. Unloading them takes a while. from docking to exiting the port, one needs to allow an hour. We were almost the last vehicle out. We hit the road at 15:00 on Wednesday 20th.

In the past, arriving at Bilbao at a similar time, we’ve driven straight through to Jalón, a journey of about eight hours. Santander, however, is an hour further west so we’d have been getting to Jalón at midnight had we done it in one hit, mostly in the dark. Instead we chose to drive for about three hours and overnight in a very nice Parador hotel at Calahorra in the Rioja wine region. We arrived at 18:00 just as the sun was dipping beneath the horizon – perfect timing.

Parador hotels are great and Calahorra proved an interesting town to wander around before dining in the hotel. We found a delightfully bustling bar (what am I saying?) that sold us glasses of perfectly drinkable red wine for 90¢ each, and that included a tapa of bread and Manchego cheese. Barking!

We left Calahorra on Thursday 21st and drove the remaining five hours to Jalon, crossing the 1000m plateau before descending to sea level just above Valencia on the Mediterranean coast, then the final hour down south to Jalón. We’d done the whole day’s drive under crystal clear blue skies, unsullied by a single cloud, until 50kms from our final destination when the grey stuff reared its ugly head. We couldn’t believe it. Bugger! No matter, as it turned out the skies did largely clear again as we finally headed up towards Casa Libelule in Jalón. We were here by 14:30 on Thursday in time to do some shopping for the evening meal, after leaving our UK home on Monday afternoon.

Essentially we’d taken four days to get here. This was more like travel of old. It felt good, relaxing and entertaining. Well, maybe not the 28½ hours on the ferry. Thank Darwin for Sudoku. 😀