Happy 2022 from beautiful green Galicia

2021 ends, as the sun rises on a new year over A Casa do Campo

It’s that time again, to look back on another year and to look forward to the next. I just reread my New Year blog from last year and see that not all my hopeful predictions for 2021 quite came to pass...

A beautiful misty morning on the rio below our house

We began 2020 in a world which has since changed out of all recognition. We ended that year in another strict Spanish lockdown with a quiet Christmas dinner at home for the three of us instead of a raucous night out with friends, but we were safe and healthy and for that we are incredibly grateful.

Here in Galicia, 2021 began cold and wet with me hiding out in my nice warm kitchen baking or up on my mezzanine writing. Our regular walks were short circuits through beautiful chestnut woods, trees bare and the ground littered with leaves. I remember one of our walks, early in January, when we set off in dazzling sunshine. By the time we reached the furthest point from home (isn’t it always) it had begun to hail. Those hailstones were sharp on my bare head and my feet were soaked by the time we got home. We would have had a roaring fire going though and no doubt a game of scrabble to while away the evening.

Walking and baking kept me sane

At home we kept busy in January with the house and allotment and I was excited when our hot water reached 52ºC from the back boiler on the new stove. My first bath of 2021 was glorious as I lay in the steamy room reading on my kindle. Bliss.

It’s a lovely cosy room that Big Barn, despite the size of it, and I’m on the mezzanine now typing this with the sun streaming in the skylight window next to me thinking just how lucky we are.

Even Clarence enjoyed our Big Barn

One thing about lockdown, it has given me plenty of time to work on my books. My second travelogue memoir Tomato, Fig & Pumpkin Jelly was launched on Valentine’s Day, an appropriate day as the book follows our fortunes trying to marry here in Galicia back in 2010. I was chuffed that Fig hit number one in a number of Amazon Bestseller categories, including, bizarrely, honeymoon guides!

The rain in Galicia became so heavy in February that on one of our walks we found we couldn’t cross the river. The road, normally some metre and a half above the river, had totally flooded. That was a longer than normal walk as we sloshed home the long way round.

There's a road under that water

A beautiful sunny March day persuaded us to make a coastal day trip with Mum. It was glorious weather and we had a picnic high on a hillside overlooking the north coast of Galicia. There was hardly a soul around and it did our souls so much good.

The beautiful North Galician coast

April saw my planting in full swing in the allotment as well as the first asparagus spears, always a treat. Mum’s second covid jab cleverly coincided with hubby’s first, though sadly at two venues, 40 minutes apart. That was a fun day of rushing hither and thither!

Early crops from the garden

By May, my tomatoes and peppers were planted and my beans growing. And I’d had my first covid jab. Things were improving. To celebrate, we bought a new TV. Our old 23” was no longer doing the job and I couldn’t turn it up enough for my increasingly deaf hubby to hear it. The new one is 40” and sits on the wall exactly the right distance away from our comfy sofa in the snug of the big barn. It even has a clever sliding screen in front of it.

Find the TV!

June began hot and sultry and my cocina had to be decommissioned for the summer months. Of course, that was the kiss of death for the sunshine and the month continued with storms and rain. June also saw the return of the velutinas or Asian hornets to our area. They are a big problem here as they attack and kill honey bees. Our campaign of destruction to all Asian hornets continued with home-made traps and butterfly nets. Our own honey bees returned too, to our loft. Sadly, they seem to find the wrong exit all too often and end up in the bedroom from where I have to sweep them up on a regular basis.

So chilly was it in early July that we had to relight the stove in the big barn in the evenings! That was unexpected. Thankfully the summer began later in the month with highs of 32ºC.

July 14th was Mum’s 90th birthday. There were 15 of us at lunch outside at a fabulous local restaurant on a lovely sunny day, and just a week before new regulations lowered the number of people eating together to just ten outdoors. Phew!

That particular day was memorable for another, much sadder event too. We lost our beautiful roughty-toughty tomcat Clarence to kidney disease. It was a shock we weren’t prepared for and I miss him still.

August saw us return to the restaurant where we had Mum’s birthday lunch, with more friends. It was such a good afternoon that we were still talking at 7pm. Even by Spanish standards, a five-hour lunch is a long one!

Our eleventh wedding anniversary at the end of the month saw another meal, and an incident which hubby will never live down. He parked the car on our driveway to unload and failed to engage the handbrake. The result? The car slid gracefully into our shed which houses the well pump, which was completely demolished. The rebuilding kept him out of trouble for a while and the car came off surprisingly well.

Harvest time

September is traditionally the time for harvesting my summer crops and this year was no different. It was also a time of flies! Whether it was the damper than usual summer but there were swarms of them whenever I went to collect my harvest. Tiny things, which went up my nose and in my mouth until I took to wearing my handy covid mask whilst gardening. September is also a time to clean the chimneys ready for the winter. Between the two houses, we now have six chimneys so that was me sorted for a couple of days.

October first saw the launch of my third travelogue memoir Chestnut, Cherry & Kiwi Fruit Sponge. I was delighted to have 112 pre-orders for the book. Wow and thank you!

Mum went on her holidays in October, to visit my brother in France and we went on ours, exploring parts of this beautiful area we didn’t know about. Over four weeks we discovered stunning mountains, beautiful beaches and hidden forests all within an hour or so of home. We also got fitter, walking in those mountains and forests, and along those beaches in the autumn sunshine.

Beautiful beaches and magnificent mountains

I had an early birthday present at the end of November when my three books hit a combined total of over one million page reads on Kindle Unlimited, Amazon’s ‘library’ arm. I was both humbled and very happy that day!

For my 57th birthday we ate at a Japanese restaurant in Ourense. A friend joined us and we had a lovely day with all my favourite Japanese foods, and cakes and coffee afterwards at a lovely café nearby.

A perfect birthday

And so we come full circle. Our Christmas in Lugo was quieter than we’d expected due to rising covid cases but we enjoyed another delicious meal out and a couple of drinks in an empty hotel bar in the evening.

Christmas in Lugo

As the sun goes down on 2021, I realise how much we have to be thankful for here in Galicia. I'd like to send some Galician magic to all my readers and to wish you all a bright future in 2022.

May all your dreams come true in 2022