Enquiries enquiries

We were up slowly at seven again, the slightly cooler mornings make life slightly less challenging. I felt quite proud of myself calling the Hotel Elyseo in La Malagueta Malaga to book us a room for Sunday and Monday nights, and doing the entire thing in Spanish. Half an hour later a funeral arranger rang up to ask help with a funeral on 1st September. His accent was somewhat thicker, but I took down his number and said I'd pass it on to someone who could deal with it. 

Later in the day, he called again a second time. I had to tell him that the person who would help make arrangements for my successor to take the service would soon make contact, but was probably very busy at the moment. I had emailed Andrea about this and she did make contact later in the afternoon. Uncertainties of this kind are part and parcel of life in between chaplains with locum clergy coming and going. It's not an easy time for anyone going through a crisis of this time.

I had a message from the lady who arranged the funeral for her aunt yesterday, wanting to know if I could christen her grand daughter next Sunday at Sotogrande. I think the family had taken to me and hoped that I'd be able to take on this request, arising from a spontaneous reaction to the service I'd taken. A double christening at Sotogrande would require preparation and planning as the father of the child in question is Spanish, so many attending wouldn't be English speakers. I don't think there was much understanding of what would make for a relaxed and natural event with people of two different languages with different expectations needing attention. I had to say no, and not just see this as a pastoral challenge to tackle as I'm leaving town later the same afternoon. There is my successor arriving a couple of days later after all. More time to think about the best opportunity for a bi-lingual baptism celebration, for everyone's sake.

Again I cooked lunch while Clare swam in the urbanizacion pool. After siesta time we walked to Carrefour for groceries and had a drink in 'Buen Temps' on the way back. Clare then went for another swim, making the most of the opportunity presented, while I walked up the valley scorched by the fire a month ago, I've found from delving into Google maps that the stream is called 'arroyo de Janacino'.

It was quite a surprise to find the extent to which the grass, cane and cactus plants lining the valley are already recovering at a pace, pushing out through burnt ash strewn soil to a height of a metre in places, bright greens against grey and black ash. The temperature night and day has swung between 25 and 35C and there's been almost no rain, just occasion damp mist and humidity. On the surface the water course is completely dry, but  there's enough embedded moisture to raise the vegetation to life again after a small eco-disaster. Inspirational.

I watched a Panorama special investigation into on-line trading of female images collected by men all over the world and traded as male status commodities. The case in question focussed on the Reddit platform, but similar things exist on other social media platforms. It's sinister, ugly, exploitative and seemingly unstoppable, now a digital device toting global population is addicted to social media. What have we done to ourselves?