RICH'S NOTES-PARENTAL TOURISMApril 28, 1999
Huerta Santa Maria, Near Galaroza
Time Out
This morning is different from others we have known at Santa Maria. There’s no Bob
– stoking the wood stove and cooking up a syrup of black coffee. Instead, the sky
pours, and this spring rain patters the skylights and the plastic roof of the greenhouse.
Mariam says that it always rains the week after Feria. It's this rain that gives Andalusia
the strawberries and the eucalyptus and the carpets of wildflowers.
The shutters have worked their magic. My parents surface at noon after 12 hours of
sleep. Lesson number three for Canadians in Europe - closing the shutters removes every
trace of light and turns off your body clock. Bleary eyed and bewildered, they savour
their fresh eggs and Sevillian oranges.
There is a break in the clouds and we venture out to see the transformed hillside. The
ground is soft. We slide up the path. The sun busily warms the damp earth and takes the
moisture from the trees. Santa Maria is in full bloom. Javier helps me with the names of
many of the flowers, the blossoming trees, the climbing vines and the triumphing
wildflowers. The greenhouse, too, bursts with delicate and luscious blossoms, some poking
out from the cactus stalks, others crowning magnificently, petals spreading, bleeding
colours from fuschia to fire engine, and the palest of pinks and butter yellows.
The rain dumps like a wash bucket, and we retreat to the wood stove and our reading and
writing. My parents are tightly wound up from their duties in Canada. Now suddenly they
are here with me and Sara, visiting with a genuine Spaniard, digesting a Mallorcan pizza,
sleeping in a 17th century chapel and staring out at the landscape of
Andalusia.
It seems days pass like this - on and off rain, fine meals, reading and conversation.
"I didn't realize how stressed-out I was." All of my mother’s perceived
ailments from Toronto no longer appear at Santa Maria. The interrupted sleeping from jet
lag is not a problem here as siestas are the order. This was the right way to start this
parental Andalusian adventure.
