Two Orchids and One Lavender

(Click on images to enlarge).

I have a lot of orchid plants ….. they are difficult to resist acquiring!

Two are in bloom now.

I think this is Guarianthe Aurantiaca. The orange colour of the blooms is amazing.

This is Phil the Phal (Phalaenopsis)

 He has his own name tag:

When we stayed at La Terraza Guest House B&B in December, 2022, I helped myself to a cutting from a lavender bush growing there. It took a few weeks to root in water and I then potted it up in soil. It’s flowering now and both the flowers and the stems have a wonderful aroma.

Fringed Lavender

Lunch - Northern Roots Bar & Restaurante

(Click on images to enlarge).

When I discovered that Northern Roots offered a mussel dish on their menu, we had to return once more for lunch which we did today. You can read about our first lunch at this restaurant HERE.

I love seafood and especially shellfish. On their menu, my choice is listed as mejillones con chorizo - mussels with chorizo sausage. Lance ordered shrimp with rice, which came with fries and a salad.

We started with a glass each of sangria:

Here is my mussel dish:

The toasted bread was perfect for dipping in the flavourful broth. In the centre of the plate are the chorizo, roasted tomatoes and onions with fresh dill on top. This is my new favourite and I will be ordering it again …. and again.

For dessert, we shared a crème brûlée. It’s so rich and yummy that one portion for two is plenty.

Cost for lunch for two: 23,650 CRC (approximately $44.00 USD).

Added bonus: as we were leaving, a mariachi band arrived and we listened to them for a little while. Here is a video I took of them (the sound quality is not that great):

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - July 2023

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During July, visits to this blog were received from the following 16 countries, Hong Kong and one unidentified location:

From the time I started to keep track, the total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received remains at 135. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions - e.g. Hong Kong which is a Special Administrative Region of China.

** Any single one of the Unidentified Location(s) could be a device that uses an IP address that is not registered to any country, region, or place or that is hidden by a proxy or VPN service. It could also be a device that is not connected to the internet directly, but through a satellite or cellular network that does not provide location information. It is possible that a ship or aircraft, or even the ISS, could use such a device and appear as an unknown location.

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The following is a summary of weather for July in the area where we live:

As is not unusual in July of any year, the ongoing "green" or rainy season included a mini-summer ("verano") with several consecutive days reminiscent of the dry season in Costa Rica (hotter days, cooler nights, no rain). The average daytime high and average overnight low temperatures were both slightly warmer than July 2022.

With regard to rainfall, and as the following chart illustrates, rainfall for the year until the end of July is significantly less (about 50%) than that for the same period in 2022. It will be interesting to see if the pattern persists.