Jaén - A Lucky Find

Jaén, the most northerly provincial capital in the region of Andalucía beckons. The silhouetted skyline peaks and dips, dark shadows and foreboding clouds hang around the brooding Sierra Morena.

Spring is on the horizon, almond blossom already lays strewn on the red earth. Also known as the watchman tree it produces the first flowers of the year, white and pink petals like confetti drift from the barren trees. Flowering before having leaves then within weeks as the spring breaks through winter with a vengeance first leaves then small buds of green furry almonds appear.

These are among many edible foods to forage, I see the locals out walking and snacking under the almost never-ending blue skies of Andalucia.

This is olive country, deep inland, bordering with the rest of Spain via the craggy mountainous pass of Despeñaperros, the natural gateway from Madrid in the north into Andalucía where many a bandit and army lay in ambush during Spain´s colourful past.

Jaén a Lucky Find - refers to me discovering this bit of writing in My Documents, I can´t remember writing it or what for so I thought it´d save me writing a post, I obviously wrote it in early spring.

Yep, lazy I am. There is no rhyme or reason to what I do. Order is not my middle name, or last name. (Even though I have two of those now, Spanish bureaucracy messed up again).