Considering the distance I walked yesterday, there were no ill effects and I slept quite well, but not long enough. On the first leg of the twenty minute walk to church along the av. Virgen del Carmen, there's a line of what I think are carob trees. They have purple flowers but they're still dying off. October is when they usually flower.
My rendezvous this morning at eleven' with someone from the Jupiter building's insurance company investigating a leak in an apartment somewhere below the church. I met him at the main door and took him around to the church entrance. A group of sixteen Bridge players were busy at their game in the main body of the hall, and smiled us through when I explained our purpose.
The man in overalls took a cursory look at the new toilets, kitchen and store room, where mains water and sewage pipes are located. He warned that it may be necessary to excavate to locate the source of the trouble, although it could equally originate in one of the dozen floors above. He proposes an appointment for 9.00am this coming Tuesday, for a further inspection. I reported this to Jen in Calpe, and she's going to contact the builder who installed the toilets, as he knows the layout and may have plans the insurers have yet to see.
Yesterday over coffee at church a lady who's visiting from Canada with her husband said that he would be willing to play the organ if asked - there's no regular organist at Fuengirola. She gave me his email address on his business card but my message to him bounced back, also my text message. As a last resort, I looked up his company website and sent an email via its pro-forma enquiry page, and this seems to have worked, as now we're in touch, and I can plan a hymn rota for the rest of the month.
I did my first load of washing before lunch, and was disappointed to discover that by the time I hung it up outdoors the sun was starting to cast a shadow over the drying line. Wash much earlier in the day is the answer. It was all still damp when I took the load in before sunset. It'll have to finish drying indoors on a rack overnight.
Lunch consisted of the other half of what I cooked yesterday, enough to eat without adding rice spuds or pasta. Afterwards I went for a walk up the neighbouring Calle de la Loma which runs behind this small housing estate. It leads to a larger more spread out urbanización sprawling into the countryside towards the AP7. There's a lane leading off the main road called the Camino de Corralejos which crosses the valley and goes underneath the autovia. A mountain stream spills over the road from its gully at the side and when it exits, it dives over a waterfall into a pool two metres below, before flowing down the hillside in a ravine filled with cane grasses and bushes. Neat walls surround well kept fincas along the road but the public area outside feels neglected, unkempt.
When I got back, I was chatting to Clare when we were interrupted by my first call on the chaplaincy mobile from a funeral director who still had the last chaplain's name against the number, wanting a priest for a service in Manilva, but no local contact number. I wasn't sure if Costa del Sol West has a locum in place just now, so I said I'd cover it and took down the details. Then I enquired of Patricia Gomersall via WhatsApp, aware that she's up at Synod in Calpe right now, with out four representatives from Costa del Sol East. I learned that a new locum, Fr Alex, had just arrived and was given his contact number to pass on the details of the bereavement and the service. So pleased to hand this over to someone living much closer who can follow this through pastorally.
Clare and I resumed our conversation a couple of hours later, and when we'd finished, I read more of the novel I picked up in church until it was time for bed.
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