Deaths in the family

This afternoon, I drove to the Ermita San Pascual de Baylon to collect some specs left there at last Sunday's Eucharist by Duncan, ready to taken them to him tomorrow at the Aljambra service. Then I walked up the hill behind the church look at the hamlet of Enmedio d'Agua from a different angle, and take a few pictures. Particularly striking are the exposed rock faces whose grey, orange, red and yellow layers, sometimes vertical, other times horizontal, are striped like a candy bar. Then I drove

along the winding coast road in the direction of Carboneras for several kilometres, taking advantage of the lack of road traffic to stop and take photos of the surrounding mountains, bathed in the light of the setting sun, plus some larger rock faces, similarly striped. I wish I understood the geology better. This is a rock face I spotted last year, driving along the road 50 metres higher up. I'm glad that I got around to snapping it.

Up at the top of the pass which overlooks Carboneras bay, still another 10km away, I stopped to admire the view, and spotted several swifts, taking advantage of the thermal air currents generated by the afternoon sun on the 100m rock face below. I've seen very few swifts around during my stay here, yet I do remember seeing them in the very same spot here last year so there may be something about this locality, like a good supply of flying insects which keeps them here.

When we talked in the evening, Clare told me she'd heard of two deaths among her relatives. Stella an older second cousin at 101, and Dorothy, wife of cousin John of at 83. We've been sending our annual newsletter and a Christmas card to Stella since we were married, though I don't ever recall meeting her. John and Dorothy we kept up with at family gatherings however. John, a Presbyterian missionary in Africa who became an Anglican priest, stood in for me for a short while when I was about to leave Monaco after my ministry there had been rejected. 

Dorothy was for many years active in the leadership of the Mothers' Union in Wakefield diocese, and they visited us in Cardiff on one of their holiday treks around the country, visiting family and friends after they retired and were still mobile, despite Dorothy being disabled by a stroke. Neither Clare nor I can make the funeral, but there'll be a Memorial Service on 15th December in Northowram Parish church, which was where they both spent many years in ministry. May she rest in peace.