THE FLOWER FESTIVAL IN GIRONA, SPAIN

Umbrella covered in rose petals.

A large crowd of us travelled to Girona on Sunday 18th May to see the famous flower festival. It was quite a cold day when we set off but we hoped for warm sunshine when we got to Spain. The coach journey took just under 2 hours and we were soon in the heart of the festival, which was held in and around the Cathedral. As we were leaving one display to see another, a few spots of rain fell - "just a quick shower" we thought but how wrong we were! Soon the heavens opened and there we were in sandals, thin blouses and slacks, absolutely soaked to the skin. It was actually quite funny and a good job it was warm otherwise pneumonia would have set in.




A large corner display of mixed blooms absolutely fantastic





The Roman room





To say it was amazing was an understatement and I am sure we did not see all the arrangements as the wet weather and soaking clothes slowed our progress considerably and we had to return to the coach for the journey to the all important lunch venue. As usual there was too much food and far too much wine and we were then entertained to flamenco dancing and the afternoon terminated with a Can Can, - well we were close to the French border! On the way home we stopped at the border supermarket and stocked up on brandy, gin, pastis and a few coffin nails (Benson & Hedges!)

A brilliant outing followed on Tuesday by one of those walks again, this time in very warm conditions but with a howling gale blowing. Still it was another really lovely walk and the picnic afterwards ran true to form, too much of everything.

When we arrived home Tina and Tony had booked a table at the local favorite restaurant and although we had really had enough to eat at lunch time we did not want to refuse their kind offer of a meal. It turned out that the meal was to celebrate the fact that they have both found a job on a luxury barge, based near Paris and they will be off to take up their new post at the weekend. A lovely bottle of Champagne accompanied the meal - all in all another very pleasant day.