Gardens of the Alhambra Palace

In 1971, a 14-year old took a road trip with her father and younger brother from Santander in Northern Spain to Nerja in the Costa del Sol. It was a grand adventure, staying in historic hotels on route (called Paradores), each transporting us back in time to a bygone age when the building had its original use – a church, a monastery, a castle – with panoramic views over the community it served.

In Granada I saw oranges growing for the first time and enormous cypress trees that rose like sentinels out of the landscape. Strolling through the majestic grounds of the Alhambra Palace, I can still recall the refreshing sound of the fountains and watercourses flowing through the beautiful, tranquil gardens against the breathtaking backdrop of the Sierra Nevada. There were 2,000 people once living in this 26-acre citadel with its mosque, market, baths and the palace, fit for a king with his wife and concubines. In April there was still a nip in the air and snow on the mountains.

We were due to stay in the Alhambra Palace, which would have been awesome. Not long open to the public, the hotel had plumbing problems so we were diverted to another memorable hostelry. My first-ever visit to the Mediterranean had been to Majorca the previous year, with my father and brother again. The images on my vision board remind me of both Spanish visits, the tall cypress trees and the bright orange groves. To my surprise, Google Lens informs me the images on my vision board are actually of a retreat centre in Majorca. I wonder if I will visit there too? Meanwhile these are the first of the synchronicities I am sharing with you.

Alhambra Palace, Sierra Nevada

Now here I am, half a decade later, returning to Andalucia. In April too. All thanks to the intuitive promptings of the vision board I made 6 months earlier. There’s still a nip in the air and snow on the mountains. My vision board shows a large Moorish citadel with snow-capped peaks behind it. It’s not the Alhambra Palace I discover but the similarity is striking.

Google Lens informs me this image is of another Moorish Palace – Ait Benhaddou in Southern Morocco. What are the chances, I’ve been there too. In April also. Then, I was 21 years old, riding a mule bare-back up a deep valley, heading towards the High Atlas mountains. Staying in a Bedouin tent, I can still recall the profound stillness of the desert and the brilliance of the Milky Way.

My board also shows a woman coveting mouth-watering food that appeals to my palette. It’s Moroccan, would you believe! Why all these synchronities should hang together I don’t know but, two months after making this vision board, I acquired a copy of Ottolenghi’s cookbook ‘Simple’. While he’s Israeli, his passion for bold, plant-based dishes are rooted in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine, which I love. And so we’ve been eating our way towards the Moorish Mediterranean even before I set foot on the soil again.

Ait Benhaddou in Southern Morocco

 

More synchronicity

The vitality of my vision board has certainly directed towards Spain even after my return.  A few weeks later, Alina contacted me from Salamanca in Northern Spain about a Feng Shui project. She’d bought an old, characterful apartment and was in the process of restructuring the interior. Our focus was to achieve an elegant energy flow throughout through the wise placement of furniture, choice of wall colourings, and other appropriate Feng Shui enhancements. I hope to see the finished apartment later this year so that my contact with Spain can continue.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about these curious synchronicities and are on the look out for them on your own vision board. Stay close to your board and treat it as a friend you can ask and confide in, otherwise its wisdom might escape you.

Otherwise EMAIL ME for a reading in which we can find deeper meaning and purpose to your board together.

On a final contemplative note …


There are power cuts and there is power outage and we had reason to experience the difference while in Andalucia. Two whole countries – Spain and Portugal – blacked out, both at the same time, for 16 hours in our case.

Imagine you are Mum and Dad in a lift with two children. The lift stops mid-air. The lights go out. You’re plunged into darkness. Nothing happens when you press the Emergency button. You reach for your mobile to find the torch. Only 1/4 battery left. Any messages? No, because you can’t receive them even via WhatsApp because the internet is down. Is this a cyber attack? You’re not able to dial home to find out.

You’ve one bottle of water and a few sweets between you – but for how long, you don’t know.

Outside on the ground, people are running around like headless chickens. The large supermarkets are closed and the smaller shops are operating by torchlight. One person is allowed in at a time but only if they have cash to pay because the tills aren’t working so you can’t expect change. Forget about making a dash to the cash machine because they are not working either.

This is the material of sacrey movies and a reality of our digital-dependent life. The moral of the story is always travel with a small battery-operated torch. And always have plenty of local currency.

We had 8 euros to last us for the 16 hours although the word on the street was the outage could last 72 hours. This raised my fear heckles big time. How would we get to the airport the next day without cash? Public transport runs on electricity! Would the planes be flying?

We had a few slices of bread, an apple, some blueberries, a chunk of cheese and one tomato in the fridge. We’d not eaten since breakfast. Fortunately someone had propped open the automatic door to our small apartment block so we could get in. Once the daylight had gone, we had to fumble our way through a pitch black hallway and grope up two flights of stairs to find our door.

The lights came back on in the early hours of the morning to whoops of joys from those still up drinking by candlelight in the nearby plaza. We’d missed all that by going to bed at 8pm.