On my own again

I woke up before sunrise and was saying Morning Prayer when Owain brought me a fresh cup of coffee. As we were breakfasting and getting ready to leave for the airport, being up early, I noticed that when the sun peeped over the east side of valley, it was further up the immediate horizon twenty minutes after dawn out of sight over the Alboran sea, than I'd seen it before. A reminder of how it moves along the horizon as we move towards midsummer day, a month from now.

We were on our way to the A7 and M20 to Malaga Airport by twenty to eight, a little later than proposed but with enough slack for Owain to be in good time to board his flight. The rush hours traffic was true to form, and I dropped him off at Express Parking at ten to nine. By the time he got through the long security queue and walked the length of the airport, he told me in a message, his flight boarding call was issued, so he didn't have to hang around for long. Eighty minutes to get there, sixty to return, with the rising sun in my face most of the way. Must be sure to leave punctually when I take this flight to Bristol in three weeks from now. While I was cooking lunch, he sent a message to say he was on the bus travelling into Bristol. Now I'm on my own for the next three weeks.

I relaxed for a while after a second breakfast then continued work on making the Morning Prayer video for two weeks, trying to get as much done in advance as I can, so I can enjoy a quiet workless time to myself. After lunch of spaghetti with butter bean and veggie sugo, I prepared the final two Sundays' pew sheets.  Then I wrote a tribute to offer at Linda Hammond's Memorial Service next Sunday. This meant delving into my blog of 2013-14 to tell the story of Linda as church warden and the achievement of acquiring and equipping a new chaplaincy house in the course of three months, under her leadership, with me as locum chaplain. It's a story worth telling for the sake of those who were there, back in the day, and for those who have come on the scene since then. I'm a little nervous about arriving at Saint Andrew's Los Boliches in Fuengirola, as I have to drive there straight after the Eucharist next Sunday. It's an hour and ten minutes. I should be OK but with traffic variables, you never can be really sure.

Having spent much of the day sitting writing, I made an effort to get out and walk down to the Senda Litoral and along the shore as far as Playa Torrecillo in Nerja. I had to decide between going Parada Monica and catching the bus back, or retracing my path. I decided on the latter, and was surprised to find a spring in my step, perhaps due to the extra oxygen taken in with the wind in my face. I was about 100m from Parada Ladera del Mar when the Line 3 bus overtook me. I was back in Church House just after the Archers had started. The time from my ascent of Tamango Hill, with several brief stops was 13 minutes. I wonder if the extra energy I seemed to have was due to that lunch of pasta and beans?

After a light supper, I opened the file of my novel about Dai Troubadour for the first time in exactly two years since my last failed effort to revise thoroughly the completed story. It's been on my to-do list for ages. This could be one thing I need this gift of peace and solitude to have time to enjoy doing.