Nerja supermarket tour

While it was still dark, I heard the main door click as Jorje entered quietly and went to work on the pool at the bottom of the garden, adding purification tablets, checking the water pump. I didn't hear him leave as I slipped away into sleep again. I woke up just before sunrise and took a photo of the valley as the sun was about to rise out of sight above the horizon. From where the sun did appear above the side of the valley a while later, I learned that the valley is oriented roughly east south east. A strong wind caused the windows to moan in their frame

After listening to 'Thought for the Day' I got up and made porridge for breakfast as usual. Jorje returned to switch off the pump and fish stray vegetation out of the pool. He's happy to talk with me in Spanish, and said he used to chat in Spanish with Fr Nigel the previous chaplain and his Uruguayan wife Pilar. He is Argentinian, easier to understand than a native Andalusian! Until lunchtime, I prepared and recorded next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection, then added chorizo to the second instalment of the dish I cooked yesterday.

I then walked down to the main road and followed the senda litoral in the Torrox direction as far as the Torre de Calaceite. My body started to remind me how far I walked yesterday so I turned and retraced my steps back to the house to upload photos and have a cup of tea. The house number plate fashioned from decorative tiles in a fancy little wrought iron frame was lying on the ground unbroken, blown off the wall by the pestering wind. Fixing it back on wasn't easy, as I couldn't find any tools in the house. An umbrella with a metal tip came to the rescue, giving me a blunt hard instrument with which to push together the soft metal loops used to mount the plate on the wall. It needs another mounting screw to prevent the wind from prising it loose.

A few things I didn't buy yesterday I still needed, so I drove to Nerja intending to go to Mercadona, but I approached it the wrong way for accessing the car park. Instead I drove right through to the eastern outskirts of the town where there's a second Mercadona, easier to locate at the side of a main road, even if the car park entrance is a little awkward. And there's a Carrefour nearby on the opposite side of the road. 

I settled for the Carrefour as I remembered it was easier to entre and exit for returning to Torrox. I found everything on my list with the exception of a few small paring knives for the kitchen. On the journey back I went to the Aldi store which is opposite Lidl on the same site, but neither store sells cutlery, but I did buy a couple of 8 litre bottles of water. The mains water is supplied by an artesian well. It's clean and safe to drink, but the taste when it comes to cooking or making tea is a different matter.

It's interesting to see the Aldi store opposite Lidl's was probably constructed more recently than Lidl, as it has an open underground car park without a gate entry system to control the length of one's stay in the car park. A smaller site has been optimised by this design approach. It was almost empty, whereas Lidl's surface car park with gate entry system is pretty full most of the time. This is free to use, but your ticket has to be validated for exit by the checkout operator. None of this at Aldi's. Access is easy once you know how, but not as visible to find as a surface car park. 

After supper I tried getting the telly to work. It was rigged up to receive UK cable TV. All the devices attached to it seem to work but there's no external signal input. Something's amiss I think. Unless there's some aspect of this assemblage I don't understand at all. I followed a line of cable from the system to the balcony, but reached a dead end. If there was once a satellite dish or aerial at the end of the line, there isn't now. I'm not bothered about this. I have my Spanish novel to read for entertainment before it's time for bed.