Settling in

I slept well, noticing the cacophany of barking dogs dispersed around this neighbourhood. It is a lot quieter here, out of holiday season. The sound of barking isn't quite as persistent as the background roar of traffic from the N340-A7 was back in Fuengirola. The same N340 passes through Vinaros, 800km further north, but it runs nearly a kilometre away from the house. It's audible as a distant rumble. The sea is 300m in the opposite direction, and when the wind is in the right direction you can hear it breaking on the pebbled shore. 

I walked into town to visit 'El Portico' the local church drop-in centre, and catch up with the crew looking after it on one of its two open days during this week. I also needed to do some some food shopping. The fridge was generously stocked for my arrival, but I needed fresh vegetables, so a trip to the Mercadona was necessary. 

On the way home, I was struck by the presence of several large flocks of starlings, wheeling around, roosting in pine trees and chattering among themselves. On the Costa del Sol, there were hordes of swifts and swallows, always in the air or roosting on power cables, and small families of noisy parakeets inhabiting palm trees. Here it's starlings that make their presence felt.

After lunch I drove out to the Carrefour hypermarket in search of a few items I'd not succeeded in remembering in the morning, just to familiarise myself once more with getting around the town. I also went out looking for the Fishermens' Chapel, aka Nuestra Senora del Carmen, the patroness of fisher folk, but failed to find it, with insufficient information about where it was. It's been used in the past for occasional services, and recently the parish priest has offered the chaplaincy an opportunity for regular use. This means that for an experimental period, services will relocate there from 'Portico', and will take place at six in the evening. It'll mean the chaplain doesn't have to rush off to another assignment at the end of a service and can spend more time getting to know church members. It's a great initiative