Photos from a foreign land

New surroundings, new beginnings, and lots of pictures

You’re reading The Earthworm, a newsletter that takes a sideways look at the world of gardens, gardening, horticulture and all that good green stuff. If this is your first time here, you can catch up on anything you’ve missed by following this link. Subscribe now for free and join the community! You can also support me and my work on The Earthworm by upgrading to a paid subscription at any time – just tap the button below.

We’re not in Kansas anymore… Or London for that matter. A hummingbird hawk moth tucks into a floribund echium

Without change, life would get very boring very quickly. (As anyone who has lived through two years of rolling lockdowns will be all too aware.)  

Some enjoy the structure of a schedule, find comfort in a predictable, stable, endlessly repeating routine. Toddlers, for example. Or dogs. But not me. I crave variety, newness and, most of all, change.

Change keeps us on our feet. Change forces us to adapt, encourages us to evolve. Change allows us to draw a line under the events of the recent past – good or ill – and crack our knuckles, ready for whatever comes next. Change gives us something to look forward to. 

The natural world – and by extension the garden – is a place of constant change. For me, this is one of the most soul-nourishing aspects of gardening: we watch seedlings sprout from bare earth; butterflies emerge from cocoons; daffodils give way to delphiniums, hydrangeas to hellebores; and we watch buds appear on branches, bloom into buzzing buffets for hungry bees, then drop their petals and swell into juicy fruits for opportunistic animals to enjoy.

For months now, I have been craving change. Specifically, a change of scene. And this week, I have been fortunate enough to find it. 

I am writing from Barcelona. Well, not quite Barcelona, but El Masnou, a small-ish town some 20 minutes up the coast by road or rail. This is the town where my father spent his early childhood, and where he has been living for the past 18-odd years. It is the town where my grandparents made their garden – a garden I never had the chance to visit, but have had the good fortune to be able to read about. But more on that another time.

When my dad first moved back here, I used to visit El Masnou at least once a year. And yet for all sorts of reasons, this is my first time seeing the town, and seeing him, since November 2017. Needless to say, there has been a lot of change in that time – in my life and in his, and in El Masnou.

The vista from my dad’s fifth floor terrace, out over the rooftops of El Masnou and the Mediterranean Sea beyond

For what it’s worth, the weather has actually been worse here than it has back home in London. But it doesn’t matter. Things are different here. The culture, clearly, the language, the food, the fashions, the taste of the milk, the opening hours of the shops. All the obvious stuff. 

But the most exciting difference has been in the flora. Palm trees line the boardwalk. Things we grow as houseplants back home cascade with lush abundance from third-floor balconies. There are flowers everywhere, and not just crocuses or tulips or hyacinths – in fact, there are barely any “spring bulbs” to be seen. Instead echium and bougainvillaea and Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae) adorn the parks and plazas and can be seen peeking out over the walls of people’s gardens. 

I am so grateful to be here. As much as anything, I am so grateful for the change. I feel refreshed and restored and relaxed. 

If you can’t force a change – to the extent that going on holiday can be described as “forced” – then I’d urge you at least to embrace the change which is unfolding around you. It’s called spring, and it’s great. 

---

Here are some holiday snaps, of a botanical bent. I promise that they are not intended to inspire envy, so I can only apologise if they do. 

My son and I admiring the plants growing under a potted lemon tree, on my dad’s terrace

In the UK, Strelitzia reginae, better known as Bird of Paradise, is often thought of as a houseplant, though it can also be grown outdoors in the summer before being whisked inside in early autumn. In El Masnou, you can enjoy flocks of these beautiful birds making themselves at home in people’s front gardens

The wildflower verges that line roads and railways and beachside boardwalks have a distinctly different flavour here

If the underside of your balcony looks like this, you’re doing something right

How many one-litre pots can you cram into your hand luggage allowance on Ryan Air? The scene outside Flors i Plantes Mateu, in El Masnou

Buggy walks in El Masnou: same plane trees, different vibes

Colour and texture and citrus everywhere

To a Northern European, nothing says “holiday” quite like a palm tree. I wonder if people from warmer climes feel the same way about rowans

Even the weeds here are interesting

“A change,” as Sheryl Crow pointed out, “would do you good”

---

How do you feel about change? Have you been fortunate enough to find it? If so, where and when? Let me know!

---

If you’re enjoying The Earthworm, there are two things you can do to support it – and by it, I mean me: You can upgrade to a paid subscription, to receive exclusive content, recommendations and community features, and/or you can share this email with a friend.