I got swept up in life the second we got back from our summer this year and forgot to post anything to do with it. We spent a week near Palamos, in the Costa Brava then a week in Cadaques where Salvador Dali lived. It was a really pretty part of Spain and I’ve just been going through photos of the gorgeous botanical gardens we visited about an hour north of Barcelona.

Marimurtra is one of the oldest botanical gardens in Europe and was established in 1921 by German botanist Carlos Faust for his research and with the aim of preserving plants threatened with extinction. Faust collected from all over the world and his findings are now divided into three sections of the garden – tropical, temperate and Mediterranean. Or as I saw it, jungle, bit less jungle, the gorgeous bit overlooking the sea.

It’s situated in a place called Blanes high up on a hill above the beach, so the view around the edge of it is unbelievable. When we visited, they were setting up for a wedding – a totally idyllic place for it, but in 30 degrees heat we couldn’t help discussing the sweat factor involved with getting married in anything more than a bikini. Below, you can just see the temple where it was going to take place, then the beautiful bay just underneath it.

There were hidden beach-nooks like this one all the way up the part of Costa Brava that we saw. I discovered that rock pools are my absolute ideal swimming conditions – there’s something about being able to get straight into the deep part from land.

It almost hurts to look at this again now that we’re definitely in Autumn in London. And speaking of London, having spent years planting really great flowers over summer only for them to decide not to bother coming into bloom, I’ve decide to do an all-green plant plan next year. Ideally it’d look something like this…

..though obviously it’s not going to.