Welcome to Casa TOVI

In the patio of a street-level house, with lots of countryside all around, lived three very special neighbours.

The first was Perla, a hard-working ant who every morning lined up her column to search for breadcrumbs, always in order, always in a hurry, as if the world would end if she were late.

The second was Roque, a woodlouse so shy that, the moment he heard a loud noise, he'd curl up like a marble and wait, perfectly still, for the danger to pass. The children who found him would giggle quietly, because he looked like a little magic ball hidden among the plant pots.

And every so often, just every so often, Rita would come to visit — a curious wasp who didn't really want to bother anyone: she was only ever looking for flowers for her afternoon snack, and the moment she found one, she'd forget the whole world existed.

One afternoon, a little girl staying at the house got scared when she saw Rita fluttering near the table. But her grandmother, who knew the huerta well, told her calmly: "Don't worry, sweetheart. This garden is her home just as much as ours. If we don't bother them, they won't bother us either." The girl stayed still, watching, and Rita flew off toward a basil pot without paying her any attention at all.

From then on, every time the girl saw an ant, a woodlouse, or a curious wasp, she'd think: "This garden is a little bit theirs too." And she learned that in the Murcian huerta, where lemons, oranges, and the vegetables that end up on the table all grow, every one of these small neighbours plays a part: they help the plants grow healthy and strong.

So if you ever see Perla, Roque, or Rita around the Casa TOVI patio, now you know: they're just passing through their own home. Just like you.

Many, many years ago, in the centre of Murcia, people decided to build a tower so tall that, they said, one day it would touch the clouds. They began raising it stone by stone, right where the city's great mosque had once stood, in the very heart of Murcia.

But the tower took so long to grow — generation after generation, with different hands each time — that it ended up mixing styles like a suit lovingly patched together over the years: a little from here, a little from there, until it became the tower of Santa María Cathedral, its oldest part below and its newest touches above, so tall that on clear days it truly seems to brush the sky.

Tradition says that when its bells rang out for the very first time, everyone in the city stopped what they were doing to listen: the flower-sellers in the square, those crossing the Old Bridge over the Segura river, the children playing near the Malecón. Everyone looked up, amazed that a sound could travel so far.

Today, if you head to Plaza Cardenal Belluga and look up, you can picture that very same scene: the tower is still there, still the tallest in the city, watching over the terraces, the flower stalls of Plaza de las Flores, and everyone strolling unhurried through the centre.

And if you're lucky, after admiring it, someone will offer you a sweet typical of these festivities: a warm paparajote, crispy on the outside with a touch of cinnamon, perfect for a snack while you keep looking up at the sky, searching for those clouds the tower never quite managed to touch… although it tried with all its heart.

Beside the Segura river, among green fields of vegetables and fruit trees, there lived a huge wooden wheel named Ñora. She was no ordinary wheel: she'd been turning for so many years, day and night, that no one could remember when she'd first started moving.

Her job was simple but hugely important: she scooped up water from the river, bucket by bucket, and lifted it high so it could flow through little irrigation channels to every orchard in the Murcian huerta. Thanks to Ñora and her sisters — other waterwheels and channels scattered across the whole valley — the lemon trees, oranges, tomatoes and vegetables grew, the very ones that later reached everyone's tables.

A boy who lived nearby used to sit and watch her turn and turn, and one day he asked her: "Ñora, don't you ever get tired?" And the wheel, who carried the rhythm of the water in every wooden plank, answered him (or so the legend goes): "As long as the river gives me water, I'll give it to the huerta. That's how it's always been, and that's how it'll stay, as long as someone looks after it."

The boy understood then that water was a treasure everyone had to look after together, just as the huertanos had done for generations, sharing it carefully in turns, channel by channel.

Over time, that boy grew up, and every time he ate a good zarangollo made with courgettes and onions from the huerta, he thought of Ñora, forever turning, forever giving water to the Murcian land.

And so, if you ever walk through the Murcian huerta and spot an old waterwheel, now you know: she's still there, quietly telling the same old story — of water, of land, and of patience.