Coconut Ice and Heliconias

Come, quickly, before it gets too hot.  We’ll go to the Mal Pola – the plant market.  Those days it used to be held beneath a couple of massive trees in a dusty corner of Viharamahadevi Park, opposite the Art Gallery.  It’s been moved.

No matter – it’s in our neighbourhood now.  Its’ turreted canopy, like a series of sleek white jousting tents, has become a weekend drawcard at the new parklands around Waters Edge –  a tourist attraction more than a serious market, they say.  The wealthy matrons of Cinnamon Gardens don’t seem to find their way to the new parklands, and sales are down.

But come, meet P.

She’s been growing Anthuriums and bringing them into Colombo to sell at the weekly market for years.  It used to be a good living.  I should know, for years I frequented her stall – and every time, it seemed, was beguiled into buying a new and ever more exotic specimen.

But I digress – I promised coconut ice Bougainvillea, and Heliconias, and while we’re at it some Orchids and Tillandsia, those tiny air plants with spidery fuschia petals and purple trumpets – the world of flowers, nature’s answer to Marianne’s demand for a multicoloured month.

For my introductions this month I can hardly think of two blogs less alike – except in the excellence of their photography.

Do you know Geophilia?  A member of the Outdoor Bloggers Network, Ana dubs her site ‘where photography meets geography’, so you can imagine how I admire her pictures.  I’ll bet you will too.

And for something completely different.   Via Lucis is the blog of two people beguiled by the history and architecture of the Romanesque period – the world of a thousand years ago.  Their photographs of the Romanesque churches of France and Spain – both grand abbeys and tiny churches hidden away in forgotten villages – brings this world of stone to life.