Up and about just before the phone alarm was due to sound at seven thrity. Another chilly night, but no wind and just a wee bit milder. I allowed myself plenty of time to reach Calahonda and arrived half an hour before the nine thirty service. There were fourteen of us, in a very chilly church. It has incurable bad acoustics, despite a decent sound system. It's best only one of the three microphones used is switch on at any time, I discovered. There wasn't a coffee time afterwards, the church being too cold for socializing in.
I was on my way to Alhaurin at quarter to eleven for an eleven thirty service. It's a twenty five minute drive. I took the main road to La Cala de Mijas then headed inland on a cross country road that climbs up to Alharin. Everything was familiar. Entrepreneurs selling bags of golf balls to passers by on the way to one of the many golf courses in the foothills of the high sierras. Having heard mention of the 'new road' going uphill not along the coast, I reached a roundabout with a new road and took it. There signs on the roundabout were to golf resorts. There were no road numbers to be seen. I took the wrong road, drove on and upwards around several huge golfing estates and got hopelessly lost. In fact I ended up a the place where the local substance abuse rehab centre is located - too far for anyone to walk, desperate for a fix!
I turned around and headed back downhill. The road in places was not well maintained. Either I caught a pothole or the edge of the tarmac. Either way a had a pneumatico pinchado. I parked next to the rubbish bins outside a finca, next to a bus stop, realising there was no way I could get to Alhaurin in time for the service. I called Caroline to explain my plight. She reassured me that all was not lost as William the curate had arrived for the service with his wife. Providential to say the least! Then I phoned Jen and explained the situation, but didn't really know where I was. I could only tell her the name of the Finca - Fuente la Teja, which also happened to be the name of the bus stop. In twenty minutes she and John drove up to rescue me.
In the meanwhile, a gardener emptying his wheelbarrow into a rubbish bin saw my plight and offered to help me. He got the car jacked up and the wheel nuts off, but failed to free the wheel from its mounting. Then a couple of ciclistas stopped and took an interest in the proceedings, an older married couple who had left home later than usual for their Sunday morning ride, and happened to be passing. It turned out that the caballero was a Renault mechanic! At first he couldn't dislodge the wheel, but the borrowed his wife's water bottle and drenched the stuck wheel with an orange energy drink. A couple of tugs later, the wheel came away and the exchange was completed. This is the view from outside Finca Fuente de Teja.
Jen accompanied me and John drove their car to Alhaurin, to say hello to congregation members having coffee after the service. William and Caroline were there to be thanked personally, and I met several others as well. Their congregation was half its usual size, thanks to the cold. It's a big unheated church, sweltering in summer, a fridge in winter. When we return to car, John noticed that the spare tyre had deflated in the hour since it was put on.
The car will have to stay in the church car park until tomorrow, when John will return with the repaired tyre and get the spare looked at. He drove me back to Casa de Esperanza, via La Cala, so we could confirm which wrong turning I'd taken. Incredibly bad luck for them. Amazing providence to receive help on a seemingly deserted country road on a Sunday morning.
After lunch I walked for two hours to Torreblanca and back along the Paseo Maritime. There was hardly a soul on the beach. Miles of golden sand bathed in the afternoon sun, and high cirrus clouds lit in different colours by the setting sun. So restorative after that traumatic morning hour. A pasteleria near Los Boliches station was still open, so I popped in and bought myself a tartaleta de manzana. It looked tasty but was excessively sweet, not to my taste at all. Such a disappointment.
The aircon system still wasn't working properly, so I started going through drawers in the lounge and came across the instruction manual, and discovered that any time the controller's batteries are replaced the device needs to be re-booted, which is why the clock kept flashing and the device was stuck with the previous settings not yet removed from its memory. The hard reset button needed prodding with a sharp point, then the clock stopped flashing and the device worked again as designed. Warm evenings from now on, thankfully without needing to call out an engineer.
After supper and the Archers, I chatted with Clare for a while, and then uploaded the day's photos. Here it's a bit laborious as internet speed is low and subject to errors when overloaded with data. Partly this is to do with uploads being aborted when screen timeout kicks in. So depending on how many photos I have taken, the screen timeout needs adjusting to suit, or else, endless frustration. After such an unusual day, I'm tired out, and ready to turn in early.
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