The Middle of the Road

This is literally the middle of the road. Like the Chinese the Moroccans turn the central reservation of their dual carriageways into parks. When we go back to Manchester from Marrakesh we always arrange it in time to have lunch at the Casanova. If we have time to kill before our flight we then go up and park near the Menara Gardens near where they have the camel rides. 

That's not be necessary the last few times but was on Friday so we were surprised to see that this park had been built and matured since we were last there. in the late afternoon it was very popular with a courting couple in each pergola.

I won;t be blogging on Taroudant  until we return in the autumn. Those of you who know me may want to follow my blogging  our New Orleans to San Francisco road trip on

https://magstravs.blogspot.com

from about April 20th, wifi permitting.

Terrace pots

We potted up some small plants on the terrace but our main efforts were replanting the troughs. in the autumn we experimented with two replacing the marigolds with geraniums. in one we bought 4 largeish red plants and they are doing really well. 

The other was planted with 3 white and 6 pink plants and we decided that was too many so we re-did the 3rd trough and transplanted the white geraniums to it which was interesting as we had only put 3 plants in but got 8 plants out. 

We then had to rejig the pink ones a bit. 

Those all look sad now but we hope by our return in autumn they will be thriving. Either that or they will be dead.
There's quite a few flowers about on the terrace even the new lemon tree has buds.

 Sadly the pollinators aren't attractive bees but rather repulsive black flies.

 Anyway an extended, for Morrocco, period of rain followed by a heat wave has encouraged everything into growth.

Even the self sown weeds look good.

 Whether  the summer will finish them off remains to be seen but our friend has always done very well with the watering so far.

The Pot Sellers

  We need to pot up some of the baby plants before we come home. The pottery yard has range of large garden pots but we only need smallish ones, large plantpots rather than jardineres. 

You are supposed to bargain but at 80p a pot (those to the right) we could not be bothered. The large pot to the left is a lid to a brazier they'd been using

 which would make it into an oven.

The Vala

I have long wanted to visit the Vala. It is in the outskirts of town next to the new mosque/religious college. The Vala pre-dates it by decades and is one of those restaurants mostly used for weddings and other functions. The town tends to book it for events such as the bike race when lots of people need feeding. We had never been and were very pleased when the Teacher invited us. I had expected gardens but it was actually a purpose built restaurant building with numerous rooms over 2 floors

 and a further terrace from which there were views across the valley to the anti-atlas.

  It has been very hot the last few days and it was pleasant to sit in the shade and have a banquet prepared for you.

Beloved was very taken by the old telephone in Reception.

The Murals

The Municipal Stadium is just opposite the basketball courts in the park. It is old and looks a bit shabby from the outside, I think they are building a new one up in Lastah but whether as an additional facility or a replacement I don't know. Anyway they have spruced it up and added murals to the outside wall.

The Park Around the Walls

We drove round the walls late yesterday afternoon. The park has really come on well. The mountains were looking good,dusted with snow.

 Those that had got out of school early were begiinning to use the sports facilities but after 6 they would be widely used and on Sunday they were swamped. There was a small fair with a waltzer and dodgems and electric mini cars for toddlers

.The gardens now look mature rather than sadly optimistic

 and the sculpture park was particularly lush because the rain had given it a lawn and the hedges once hard pruned to nothingness are now waist high and dense.We need to learn for our hedge.

There was still a lot of development. We'll find out what when we return in the autumn.

The gardens and playground by the Palais Salaam were well-used by smaller children and even attracted a snack stall.

I was quite jealous of the plants