Our ship is now just a few hours away from docking back at Southampton, and while it marks the end of yet anther stage of my long journey, I am really sorry to have had to farewell the wonderful young honeymoon couple who sat at my table with me throughout the voyage.
Because I travel alone, on all my ocean voyages the time I most enjoy on the ship is having dinner with those fellow passengers who are on my table each evening, and chatting with them about all kinds of things. I always ask for a table of 6 to 8, so that even if one couple decides to dine elsewhere on the ship that evening, the rest of us can still have a great conversation. Seeing the same familiar smiling faces each evening and chatting about what we did and what we saw that day is a great constant for that voyage.
But on this voyage, this young couple and I were the only ones at our table for seven for 12 out of the 14 nights. Yet despite our great age difference, they were unbelievably kind and never left me to sit alone at that quite large round table. And we had lots of laughs and shared many stories . They were simply delightful and I looked forward to seeing them each evening. I do hope they will keep in touch and come and visit me in Australia one day. (The other two nights we were joined by a couple of about my age who spoke very little English, so we could not blame them for choosing to eat in the smorgasbord area instead.)
I am remaining on the ship to go to Spain, so tonight there will be a whole new set of dinner companions. I have always been so lucky with my dinner companions, I hope that this group will be equally friendly and a pleasure to know.
Anyhow, I meant to be talking about our next port of call after Genoa, which was Malaga, a Spanish port city on the Mediterranean Sea. I really liked Malaga, and we were most fortunate to have a great guide who not only regaled us with stories of the city but also told us very humorous stories about his garden, his bees and life in general. For example, he told us he has three orange trees in his garden, which he mainly planted because of the lovely scent they give his garden for about three months whilst they are flowering. His lemon tree is a different matter. So far it has produced only one lemon, which is still half-green, and so he now talks to the tree very sternly and tell it what he will be doing if it does not start to behave itself. The lemon still sits there . . .
I will tell you about the city itself in the next post. This time I would like to show you the city’s beautiful botanical gardens, which were once privately owned then gifted to the city when the owners became insolvent. The lady of the house loved plants and despite having several children, went around the world collecting all kinds of plants. They employed a renowned French landscape gardener to design and establish the garden.
What a wonderful legacy! We spent over an hour walking through the gardens, and it was such pleasure - and a relief from the heat walking along in all the shade. I could not get over how tall all the trees were. They were just magnificent!
I will not caption the photos, but take you on a walk around the garden instead. Two of the photos (numbers 5 and 6) were taken of plants inside a little greenhouse, so you will see some reflection in them. A couple show the original owners’ house. It was a public holiday, so we only saw inside one of its four internal covered courtyards.
No comments:
Post a Comment