Which is the best month in the Canaries?

When people ask which is our favourite month on La Palma, it's always difficult to answer. Each month and season has something special to recommend it!
Spring is of course fabulous for the wild flowers - great bundles of sweet peas that line the donkey paths and always in the vibrant colours of hot pink and stunning magenta, terraces blanketed in purple and yellow and bright red poppies springing up wherever they get the notion.  But then winter is pretty great - after all, the winter sun is what a lot of people come to the Canaries for. Summer is lovely with long days in the garden, swimming or beach combing down at our local beach of La Fajana de Garafia just a 12 minute drive away and the nightly chorus of crickets and frogs.  And autumn is also beautiful with the colours as the chestnut tree leaves turn to amber and we are picking baskets full of figs from the trees on the finca.
We have a special reason the look forward to May though because this month heralds the start of when we get both a sunrise and a sunset from the finca. Crazy I know!  
Here's a photo of our lovely sunrise as we look east towards Barlovento.

A sunrise is definitely worth getting out of bed for and is so inspirational. And of course for those who are planning a long walk, then an early start during summer is usually advisable - great to have bed and breakfast accommodation right by the GR130 walking route in that case!

And then in the evening, we can enjoy the sunset. And that's the great thing about sunsets, you never know if it's going to be fiery and fill the sky with the intense glow of a volcano erupting.

Or gracefully slip down in the sea.

Whichever theme it chooses, it's always a magic sight.

And to think that when we came to live here in Garafia in the north of La Palma, we didn't knkow if we would see either the sunrise or sunset at all. You can read the story about it on our 'Relocating to the Canaries' here.

Figs galore

It's fig season.
I can't say that I had a lot to do with figs before I came to La Palma, except maybe when I might buy some dried figs from the supermarket at Christmas.  So no, I can't say that fresh figs had a starring role in my life before - but now, wow, I love them!

And that's a good thing because we have 32 fig trees on our west facing terraces. The terraces, seven of them, are all quite narrow due to the steepness of the land and it's good to have these trees growing with their network of fine roots holding the soil together.  The leaves have nearly all fallen off now we are approaching autumn but many of the trees still have plenty of fruit on.

Some of the figs are a bright green colour and others a deep purple, a mix on the same tree.  At first, we collected them and took them to the wholesaler about 40 minutes drive away.  He picked through them and informed us that only about half were any good - some were not ripe enough and they don't ripen once taken from the tree, and others were too ripe, so in fact there are only a couple of days difference.  Quite a delicate operation. 

We did return again with another batch and did much better with around eighty percent being accepted but after that we decided to dry them and then eat them. 

Nowadays, we eat them fresh from the tree while they are still warm from the sun.  Or we put them in the fridge so make a refreshing snack.  Of course, there are plenty for our friends and guests.

And then, there are our other friends, the chickens who are very partial to a fig and in fact their run incorporates a fig tree, although it never has any figs on it and its main benefit for them is the shade and for perching on. 

Canarian Proverb: Never fall asleep under the fig tree.  (Don't tell the chickens)