Welcome home?

As our flight departure was due late afternoon, we had time to stroll out and visit the Tuesday mercadillo after breakfast. I dressed ready for travel with my usual black shirt and cross in lieu of dog collar. As I was gazing at a stall selling teas and spices, I was accosted by an Irishman about my own age who asked if I was a priest. I confirmed that I was an Anglican cleric visiting Nerja, and he remarked that nowadays back home it was becoming a rare thing to see any cleric abroad in uniform, as they encountered such aggression and hostility in public, since the exposure of clerical abuse.

He told me that he'd been an international political and economic journalist for forty years, and was also visiting Nerja, but his home was in Galway Bay, and spent much of his year in Britanny. He'd been raised as a Catholic by a devout mother and a father who kept the church at a distance. One of his brothers was a priest academic who'd left public ministry and married some time ago. He lamented the church's inability to keep abreast of reality in its responses to a changing world, and we pondered awhile on how that might be addressed. He expressed an interest in staying in touch, so we exchanged email addresses as we parted.

Geoff and Carol drove us in good time to the airport, and our flight schedule was untouched by threats of ash clouds descending from the latest Icelandic eruption. The plane flew in the highest air-lane, over the top of some threatening storm clouds, and taking advantage of the jet-stream tail wind landed fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. We were surprised to discover while waiting for our shared suitcase that the use of a baggage trolley (normally free) cost two pounds. "Two quid!" I heard a fellow home-comer exclaim. "The bloomin' flight only cost twenty pound." No wonder BMI Baby is withdrawing its flights from Cardiff International Airport, having found it as uneconomic as it is also unattractive and user-unfriendly. It's a symptom of all that Wales cannot get right about developing its world class assets for the new century.

We had a twenty minute wait in a not very protective bus shelter caressed, if not buffeted by a decidedly cool evening breeze. We shared confusion with two other passengers from Malaga about which bus was going where, as the circular bus routes embrace either Llantwit Major or Barry going to or from the airport. However, we had our free ride into the city and then another free ride home, thanks to our bus passes, and were eating supper and reading a fortnight's mail by eight, happy to be home again.