Family meeting in L.A.

A domestic start to the day with a small load of washing to do after breakfast, before drafting a sermon for next Sunday, and preparing MP3 files of the music to be used for the funeral on Wednesday. Then lunch with the second half of the chicken dish I cooked yesterday and then a trip to the Mercadona for groceries. It was teatime before I went for a walk to the far end of the urbanizacion de la Loma, where ends looking out over the valley through which the AP7 autovia to Marbella runs.

It's an estate mostly of private houses behind walled gardens. Many have customised plaques announcing the first name of the owner - there's a casa de abuelos, a casa de Maria, and so on. The plaques on some properties don't give the name, but hint at the identity showing a symbol. I noticed an image of Ganesh on one gatepost, Thai design on another, and Arabic design on another.

My ankle started playing me up, probably because I wasn't as warmed up by activity from sitting around for much of the morning, so I didn't walk as far as I usually do before returning. On the way back I noticed several small groups of birds flying together towards the coast, with their slow wing movement suggesting they weren't small birds. Closer scrutiny of one group flying past revealed them to be egrets, which tend to fly inland to feed by day and return to roost near water in the evening. I saw a single egret the other day on the beach foraging near a storm drain outlet, an early arrival on the evening commute.

I chatted with Clare before supper and then had a call from Rachel, as she was on her way out of Los Angeles to the freeway that would take her back to Arizona. She made the seven hour drive there to spend the weekend with Rhiannon and her friend Lauren, who are there to attend a fortnight's course at the Stanislavski School of Method Acting for movie students. Amazing to have such confidence to go there unaccompanied for the fortnight before her 19th birthday. Rachel had a most enjoyable weekend being auntie and showing them around LA in her car.

A couple of hours of reading, then bed.