The spice of life

A quiet, uneventful start to the week apart from visits to the bridge over the charco, spotting a couple of herons, well they may be a pair, but they tend to stay well apart from each other once breeding is over. There's just one egret out there again, the other two I saw seem to have quit. What's happened to the hundreds I saw last year? I wonder.

Today I phoned Fr Miguel the local parish priest, to confirm with him a date for the ecumenical carol service which happens a week after I leave here. I'll go to the Wednesday evening Mass in the parish church at Mojácar pueblo this week, and meet him properly. It'll give me an opportunity to exercise my Duo Lingo Spanish.

I had an email confirming an earlier request to do locum duty in Málaga during Lent and Holy Week. So that's January in Montreux, home for February, then Málaga for March and April. It will mean living there for the period of remarkable religious processional events, not just commuting in for a few hours at a time, as I did in 2014 from Fuengirola. It interests me greatly to see how the city continues to go about daily life, welcoming hosts of tourists as well as those who make what is in effect a pilgrimage there to participate in the cermonies. For balancing normality, I'll have the variety of three Anglican Chaplaincy congregations to minister to, at what is my favourite season of the Christian year.

When I think of the places I've done locum duties in Spain, what makes this enjoyable is that within a chaplaincy, congregations aren't clones of each other. Each has a different history as well as different context. Liturgy used will be much the same, but each gathering for worship expresses itself uniquely, and as a priest one has to develop a particular relationship with each. Variety is the spice of life!

Another walk to Garrucha this evening. A new large bulk carrier is loading in port, called Yeoman Bank, registered in Liberia. It's unusual among big ships I've noticed here, described by the Marine Traffic ship database as a 'Self Discharging Bulk Carrier' which explains the distinctive superstructure attached to its bow section. As it's currently loading, this is not in use, and is displaced high above the water, away from the loading quay.

For reasons unknown, the ship database shows correctly that it is currently berthed in Garrucha, but the Garrucha Port section of the Marine Traffic website shows no trace of its visit. This website is vast and complex. Keeping it up to date must be a nightmare, and not everything can be automatically sync'd. It's amazing we have such information resources anyway.