Another hot start to the day, and after breakfast an email to answer from Peter, the locum chaplain who'll follow me next week. I need to brief him about producing the weekly pew sheet, and several other matters. I've already prepared the pew sheet for his first Sunday, as he's not arriving until the weekend. Then I set out to catch the Line 3 bus into town, rushing to get there punctually, and then having to wait half an hour until it arrived. Standing in the small patch of shade at the bus stop, I spied a small brown and green lizard in the raised bed at my feet, the first I've seen since I've been here, and then only for a few seconds. Not enough time the get my phone out for a picture, having forgotten my proper camera.
A Dutch lady was waiting for the bus. I chatted with her in Spanish, explaining it was not unusual for the Line 3 to be late due to traffic. She got impatient and started walking in the direction of the parada by the Mesonera de Nerja restaurant. The bus arrived, picked me up and drove on. Unusually, it was packed with passengers, and wasn't labelled 'Line 3' as usual. From this I could only conclude there was a problem with traffic circulation. The Dutch lady arrived at the next stop just as the bus pulled into the lay-by. We laughed when we eyeballed each other. The bus disgorged many but not all its passengers, not at parada Monica, but an unofficial stop opposite the Ermita. The driver was definitely improvising!
When I walked down the street that leads to parada Monica, a very tall mobile platform being used for work on an eight storey building was planted on the pavement and on roughly a third of the road. Cars could pass, but any larger vehicle like the town bus would find it a tight squeeze and put the mobile platform at risk. Thus parada Monica could not be used today. I wonder if this information was publicized anywhere? Certainly not at the stop suppressed.
I spent an hour in the Church shop until it closed, then decided to walk back along the beach owing to the uncertainty about where to get the bus. Near the Marinas de Nerja hotel is a small chirungito which has yet to open, if it will open at all this season, like the nearby Playa Paraiso de Nerja restaurant which is closed and visibly decaying. Here I spotted a brown snake sunbathing, then disappearing into the dry stone retaining wall that separates the beach gravel from the patio. I waited around for a while and got a succession of photos of it on my phone. Google tells me it was a grass snake; about a metre long too! Interesting, but photos not nearly as good and sharp as the TZ95 would produce. Have a look here.
For lunch I stewed some chicken with judia plana, onions and mushrooms, to go with pasta. Enough for two days. I needed to wash my shirt and vest and get them out to dry, as they were soaked with sweat after walking in full sun. I wore my jacket to prevent my arms from burning, rather than put on a long sleeved shirt. Not a good idea.
Thinking about what I want to do when I return, I decided that after three years withou a break, I'd like to stop doing the weekly Morning Prayer videocast, and let someone else bring something fresh to the offering. I enjoy the creative exercise especially the reflection writing, but feel the need to do something different. This litte exercise developed out of covid lockdown. Nonody really knows how many or few people make use of it. There's been no review of it or discussion about the future. So I decided to tell the other contributors that I wish to stop and raised the question of revieving what we do. I will be interested to see if there is any reaction.
As promised, I assembled the various files needed to produce print and web versions of the pew sheet, plus detailed instructions about how to get the best out of the office computer and printer, then emailed them to Fr Peter, the locum following me. He's a Mac user, but depending on the age of his device, he may not be able to use it directly with the printer, which is pre-wifi and pre-USB port hardware. It's fine once you get acquainted with the workarounds! After aupper, I spent the evening making the video slideshow to go with next week's Morning Prayer and uploaded it to YouTube. Bed time seemed to come around very quickly.
No comments:
Post a Comment