Pissouri, Cyprus - Variation on the new walk, continued

Well I was not able to access the webinar that I had signed up for. They were overwhelmed by the response. Everyone wanted an art tour of Florence I guess. They sent me the recording so I can watch it when I feel like it. So Pam, power is back on!

Once on the track the banks were covered in flowers (wild garlic)

I had been told that the wildflowers would be like this, spilling over the hillsides, but hadn't really believed it or been able to imagine it.

It was warm. little wind and an abstract sky.

Another flowering bush I hadn't noticed before

The path was covered in

 tiny daisies. Reminds me of England.

I know that as it gets hotter and there is no rain, all of this will disappear and the landscape will be predominately brown, so I am really enjoying the green and the flowers while they are here.

At the top of the hill I came to an intersection. To the right were houses. Straight ahead I could see the street lights of Panorama Heights (where, just 3 weeks ago, most of the village gathered for the Green Day celebrations, how the world has changed) so I went left.

Now I was getting closer to the sea. I was hoping the track would meet up with the one below and create a circular route or would go down to

Pissouri Beach and I could walk back up the road.

But no, the track ended at an unoccupied goat farm. A pile of ramshackle corrugated iron sheds up against a rock outcrop, surrounded by a wire fence. That explained the increasing amount of goat droppings on the track.

I turned round and retraced my steps. How did I miss this on my way.?

I haven't messed with this, it really was that amazing colour. I must have walked by it while I was looking at the view. On my way back I only saw one other Iris and it wasn't quite out. I don't know if they are native or if they have just been spread by birds. I also had missed this pile of caterpillars.

On the walk back I saw a Hoopoe but he flew away, along with 2 Sand Grouse I had also disturbed. I saw about 10 Sand Grouse on the walk, in pairs, flying up out of the undergrowth, protesting about the disturbance and skimming over the bushes to land again a little further away.

When I first spotted this I thought it was an odd shaped flower. But no, a butterfly!

Pretty flower it was on.

The walk took me a couple of hours. I met one dog walker. We passed on opposite sides of the street.

Today was spent in some gardening (weeding, pruning, planting), more on that later.

I feel guilty pruning off branches that have flowers on them, so stuck them in with the Freesia.

I enjoyed my foray into painting flowers and was relatively happy with the results but my ambition is to be able to paint landscapes and that, I am discovering, is much harder. So today I tried a less complicated one than previously.

Started with wet on wet for the sky and the sand cliffs. When this had dried I did wet on wet for the sea.

Then I painted in the land in the distance, rocks at the shoreline and layered in the bushes.  I had to stop futzing with the bushes but will probably revisit them tomorrow and work on the sand cliffs.