The many faces of our home in Galicia

I love to photograph the different seasons here in Galicia and am so lucky to live in such a photogenic spot. I don’t even have to leave the house to find an ever-changing view. The two photos above were both taken from our bedroom window.

This small water mill on the river below the house is one of my favourite scenes to photograph year round as it captures so much of what I love about this place.

Here is the same view in January 2021, and this year, 2023, when we had record floods. Note how high the river is in the second photograph.

One of my city friends once visited and declared herself disappointed that the view was ‘just trees’. ‘But,’ I wanted to say, ‘what magnificent and ever-changing trees they are’. Here’s some more of my favourite ‘just tree’ pics.

March 2017 was frosty. You can see the barn next to the mill has lost its roof.

By April that same year, all was shades of spring.

In August the trees are a wall of deep green, the field brown and bare, but by October, the trees are beginning to show their autumn colours, washed clean by the rains, the field once more green and vibrant.

Another of my favourite photographic subjects is the view looking from our kitchen terrace towards the stone and wood built hórreo or grain store. Facing directly east from the house, this is the perfect spot to collect sunrises and rainbows,

or the louring sky before a storm.

Galegos are almost as obsessed with talking about the weather as us Brits. Many a conversation begins with ‘Isn’t it hot/cold/humid/damp/wet? (delete as applicable). Perhaps it’s because we get so much weather here – after all, constantly saying ‘Isn’t it sunny?’ day in, day out would soon get boring. But also, I think, it’s because our glorious Galician weather is so erratic.

Here's some more photographs of the hórreo taken in February 2018 and in the same month in 2021. What a difference!

And here in July 2020 and 2021. Note the ‘lawn’ is still green in the damper 2021 summer season. I hope I managed to get the washing in before the storm!

Seasons here don’t follow in any logical pattern. We can have picnics in February and in August with equal abandon. Both Mum and S removed their tops just after this February photo was taken as it was so warm on our hillside picnic spot, but I didn’t wish to subject my readers so early in the year. 😉

Then there are the summer thunderstorms.

June and September 2021

Note hubby, S, in this photograph, turning the compost in the August rain - our first that hot, dry summer of 2020.

We can equally have sunshine for our holidays in autumn and spring. Here is hubby with his friend in the Lugo mountains in October 2018 and the two of us at the Lugo coast in March 2017.

Or we can eat outside in November. Actually, we eat in this sunny spot in the garden year round. It faces south and is a perfect sun trap.

One week we can be in shorts on the terrace, the next needing waders (these photographs were taken a week apart in June 2021, but I think Mum knew what was coming, given her footwear in the first photograph).

See the water lapping the edge of our terrace? Now we know why the previous owners added a step!

We can have fog for our daily walks in December and floods in January (the second photograph shows S attempting to cross the new river where once was a track, earlier this year).

Some of you will recognise this view of our house; it’s on my webpage, Twitter and Facebook sites, but doesn’t it look different in the February sunshine (2011) and January snow (2009)?

Of course all this weather means some fabulous sunrise and sunset pictures. I’ll leave you with my favourite of all time, a glorious golden sunrise over my allotment, taken in December 2016 (from the upstairs sunroom window).