Let's take a quick break from Tenerife and I'll post you a couple of photos that the family took-
the first is from Vika in Japan - Azaleas. Komagome (one of the subcities of Tokyo) is famous for Azaleas (and for the tree lined streets Gingko trees which formed a ceremionail path between it's many shinto shrines).
Each city has it's particular totam flower and Komagome has it's Azaleas.
THey line the main JR circular rail line (the Yamamoto line) which runs through Komagome and is one of the busiest rail lines in the world. A train every five minutes so you just need to turn up and barely wait and hen you are away.
When I had a fight with Jiurie (as we always do when we are away) I sat and went the way round clockwise - took about an hour. And then I was still mad so I got on and rode all the way round again but anti clockwise. Vika said she'd always wanted to do that but never did. Perhaps she needs to get married so that she can have a fight and end up doing just that.
Anyhow I asked for more photos of Azaleas but she said they just disappeared -"it seems Global Warming is playing havoc with the blooms! will find other species to photograph!".Funny thing is - it's playing havoc with the weather here in Tripoli too. I never thought that I would see a climate change in my lifetime but I think we are - hopefully it isn't exponential or runaway. The winters are definitely warmer now than when I was a kid (despite the last two) and there is barely snow compared to the old photos that you see of Aberdeen.... but this could all just be a flutter (like the mini-iceages and the wet and warm spells in the C14th that led to the vikings growing wheat in Greenland..but i digress for once... outside tomatoes are still rubbish in Tipperty though even subartic which is supposed to be able to ripen in the Artic circle - not for me it won't... and sweet corn or sweet potatoes - forget it up where we are....
Other photo before I drift off into more scientific ignorance and why I think it is too late to do anything about global warming - we are like fruit flies on oranges to trying to make them ripen quicker - we might think we are making changes and the fruit is ripening but the orange would keep on changing whether we were here or not... or maybe we are more like moulds on am orange - each one individually microscopic but put us all together and we end up making the whole thing rotten... there's a nice metaphor.... other photo.
This one from Tipperty courtesy of Jiurie - the Alliums in the front - next to the battered hebe - with self-seeding californian poppies in the back and the Geums (don't like geums, indifferent to the poppies but I do love those Alliums. They are a great cut flower - long stiff stem and some of them dry magnificently.
