Getting settled in

I rose with the sun once more, and pottered around all morning, saying prayers, writing, catching up with Ashley on the weekend's happenings. After lunch I walked down the hill in the direction of the town, as far as the junction with the N340, which is about 3 kilometres away. It took me fifteen minutes to reach the nearest mini-market (closed for the siesta) and twenty five to reach Mercadonna, where I bought a couple of cleaning cloths for the kitchen. A little further on, I found a hardware supermarket, where I got a cheap cafetière, some wooden spoons and a small sieve. The walk back uphill is quite steep, so all on all I got myself some much needed physical exercise.

At the roadside as road above starts to climb steeply, is an intriguing addition to the built environment called the 'Capillo del Silencio', which really got me thinking.

You have here just the west and east walls of a chapel. The east has a niche holding the figure of a Capuchin Friar holding his finger to his lips and a bell-cote above. Between the walls, a metre of space. Nothing else. No graffiti, no rubbish. That's all. I guess it's a sculpture/installation. It's newly built, not a remnant of an historic monument. So that makes it a statement, but what sort of statement?

In 2012 a more monumental 'Chapel of Silence' was constructed in Helsinki, a substantial modern public building funded by the Finnish Lutheran Church, but a building with no liturgical furniture, just beautiful quiet empty space with seats that anyone can use to sit and meditate. It's quite a strong contemporary idea of creating a sacred space that can be used by people of all faiths or none, united only by silence. This roadside edifice is a wry kind of homage to that idea, using traditional Andalusian design and materials. There's no interpratation panel (not that it's needed), but therefore no idea of who the designer of this folly might be. Nothing on the web that I could find either. I must ask around.

Later, I went back down to town by car down to St Andrew's, about six kilometres away, to investigate the office facilities.  The church hall was open and in use, and a handful of people were there for the first rehearsal of a Victorian Music Hall extravaganza for December. I couldn't access the Chaplain's computer, as it was password protected, but while I was there the new church secretary came in, and let me use hers.  When I shut down the inaccessible machine, it started installing nineteen updates, and this too over an hour. It runs Windows XP, so there won't be many more such updates to come. Lucky I had plenty to do and the means to do it.

As the router was the same as the type I've been using for years back home, I was able to access its set up and find the wi-fi password, which yesterday I discovered had been changed. So immediately I was able to log in the chaplaincy phone and my laptop, and do some necessary updating of my own. This is a well organised chaplaincy, as befits its thirty years of experience of serving expatriates along the Costa del Sol. I want to be able to give of my best while I'm here.