Equinox

A slow start to a beautiful sunny day, getting ready to welcome the arrival of a pair of single beds offered to improve the accommodation capacity to six, in time for Clare's arrival this Saturday. Ann arrived at eleven with a white van man called Fernando and his young assistant sporting a crew cut dyed bright pink. They moved furniture around, installed the beds as requested and were most helpful. Bed linen has been supplied, and all four single beds will be made up by the cleaners when they come on Friday. It's great the way this has worked out.

As Ann was leaving, we stood at the gate and were surprised to see a House Martin flying slowly up and down the stretch of grass opposite, hunting for insects. It's something I've not seen before. I wondered if the Martins had only recently arrived.

I cooked yesterday's tuna steak for lunch. A minute in a hot mix of olive oil and lemon and it was done, melt in the mouth perfectly. I then walked down to the church office to hang up my alb and put yesterday's church collection in the safe. Clare called as I arrived and we chatted for an hour, benefiting from the fast internet there. I'm hoping the house internet will be upgraded soon, and then there'll be fewer calls dropping out or problems with cloud services updating. 

After a short walk along the Paseo Maritime, I headed uphill intending to do some grocery shopping, but instead of popping into Mercadona I caught the L3 bus over the hill and went to Aldi's on the Mijas Road instead, and then walked back from there as the sun was setting.

After supper I went out to stretch my legs as my back was aching, though it hadn't given me much trouble earlier in the day. As I walked up the hill behind the urbanizacion, I thought I heard the distinctive sound of a tree frog coming from a strip of orchard ground beside the road. When I checked Wikipedia, I learned that the green tree frog's mating season begins in March. Today is the Spring Equinox. Clare arrives on Saturday afternoon and for her the time difference on waking up Sunday morning will be two hours. One for Central European Time and another for Summer Time.

The DMAX channel that offers a mix of English and Spanish programmes, showed a documentary made by the adventurer and journalist Bear Grylls in Ukraine where he interviewed President Zelensky. It was first aired a month ago, but tonight was its estreno (first showing) on DMAX. It was a surprise for the end of the evening. 

I learned that Grylls is a lifelong member and supporter of the worldwide Scout movement, and one of its Ambassadors, promoting the movement's lifestyle, values and activities internationally. It was inevitable that among the people he interviewed were Ukrainian Scouts, father and son. I gained a great deal from my membership of the Scouts as a teenager, although after leaving for University it became a thing of the past, but nevertheless influential in stimulating my lifelong interest in environmental issues and nature.