Time in Syria

The garden behind the apartment is not big, and most of it is taken up with a car-port. But it has shrubs and trees which provide a little greenery, and shelter me from the eyes of the houses opposite. One of the shrubs, a pyrocanthus, also attracts birds, which eat its berries through the winter. There are blackbirds, which sing at dusk, pigeons (a very attactive burnt terracotta colour here) and lots of sparrows, which seem to thrive here despite the appalling pollution. I've started putting out breadcrumbs for them, and have just brought back some fat balls from the UK as well. These are plainly either not popular or not recognised, as the sparrows so far just sit and look at them.

This year I plan to put some pots of plants into the garden - lavender if I can find it, something citron-scented to deter the mosquitos, and a local plant called dufla which grows easily at the sides of the road, has white or pink flowers, and must be almost indestructible. I also have some nasturtium seeds to plant.

The downside of the garden is that it gets dropped into it lots of stuff cast away by my upstairs neighbours from their balcony - tissues, cigarette butts, broken clothes pegs. Not nice but just the way things are. It also has a magnetic appeal to the neighbourhood cats who like to use it as a litter tray. Again, not nice, and for them I have started sprinkling some pepper around to see if that keeps them away.