If God liked golf this would be the kind of golf course I imagine he would have designed. However this isn’t a golf course but the spring oats sprouting from the dry ground to the north of the Sierra Maria-Los Velez. This is a high plain that runs in a westerly direction towards Orce, Cullar, Baza and Guadix.

And here is the irony. Predictions announced by the Environment Minister last week state that Spain is heading for one of the driest springs since records began sixty years ago. The average rainfall for this time of year is 12.4 litres per square meter, however, so far it has only averaged 2.8 litres this year.

The Segura, Guadalquivir and the Ebro in Catalonia are all low and national water reserves are only 45.3 percent full.

All the indications point towards a long, hot summer with urban conurbations experiencing water shortages.

So why do they keep building golf courses? Why do they keep building houses that don’t collect rainwater?

Oscar Wilde said that golf is a good walk spoiled. I think in these climates, unless they introduce more sophisticated irrigation systems using reclaimed water, golf is a good environment spoiled.

And what’s more what is this golf course design aesthetic anyway? You don’t need green grass to ‘whang’ a ball around the countryside. Why not make them ‘environment specific’?

We took the ‘camino rural’ around El Gabar yesterday stopping to take this photograph looking back toward Los Gazquez. We are below the rocky ridge called Pena Casanova the highest point in the Sierra Larga and you can just see Chica Muela to the distant right.

Today we had a low level positive sighting of a Booted Eagle over Los Gazquez. It was in it’s pale form described again so eloquently by the Collins ‘Birds of Britain and Europe’. It’s flight may have been low due to the five or six vultures cruising overhead though I would have thought it unlikely as the only common denominator between them is sharing the sky.

Why is it that raptors induce such awe? I think it is the dynamism of their flight, but what I have noticed is the sudden silence within other ‘prey’ song birds upon it’s arrival. Maybe it is this subtle sudden silence proceeding the birds passage overhead that subconsciously excites our respect.

High winds  littered the air with vultures today like tea trays caught in a tornado. Zephuros blew black clouds from the west, the wind chilled and alternated with scorching heat from the sun. And this is the vulture roost, high on the cliff top of ‘La Muela’, high above the olive groves and dog strewn pueblos at the foot of the mountain.

A cold continental wind brought snow over the weekend and Sunday’s view of ‘La Sagra’ from ‘Los Gazquez’  was beautiful, and more dramatic than this picture suggests. It brought a sense of  the world fresh and new, a crisp cool wind and warm sun on your face. It is no surprise that the Moors stayed here for a thousand years. But then that’s assuming you think they left!

Thanks to my brother Paul for identifying this little beauty. I found it growing in the Jardins Botanicos de Rodalquilar, Cabo de Gata - Nijar.

He says it’s a ‘Broomrape’ or ‘Orobanche’ which is parasitic on various specific species such as Cirsium (thistle), legumes, Anthemis, Labiatae etc.

The white and pink blossom from almond now changes and turns to bright green leaf and the spring wheat and oat struggle to grow in the dry soil. We need rain.

Loved all the socio/historical connections with old Moorish Spain, the technology, the language the perpetuation of traditions, albeit mutated into a Christian world. He shows a great enthusiasm and passion for a subject he clearly knows a lot about. I always admire someone’s great insight into the history, culture and lives of others.

However, insight into manifesting a character, real or otherwise, has escaped the author in this case. The sub-plot of travelling around Andalucia with an illegal Moroccan immigrant was, in my opinion, just tedious, not engendering compassion or sympathy. It read like a device poorly executed.

Worth a read but you will have to suspend your own disbelief in the author’s contemporary world.

High above Los Gazquez we saw three Bonelli’s eagles. We presume parents and a fledgling, parent and fledglings? Their long, bright wings turning to the sun like silver curlicues twisting in the sky. Their call’s klee-klee-klee which according to my ‘Collins’ is rather musical.

Once again thank you Heinzel, Fitter and Parslow.

This is the new ‘air tree’ built in Madrid from re-cycled materials. The idea is that the photo voltaic panels on the roof generate electricity which is sold to the local energy suppliers. Also the interior is planted with trees (like a hanging garden) and the surrounding area too. This will make a community meeting area in the summer months and the planting will reduce ambient temperatures in the immediate locality by up to ten degrees.

My thoughts? It’s a shame they couldn’t give the electricity created to the immediate community creating a greater sense of social co-hesion and responsibility to their built environment.

Other than that I guess it’s cool.