Where your treasure is ..

This morning I visited Ian and Mary who live up in Frigiliana. Ian broke his upper left arm while visiting the Frauenkirche in Dresden a few weeks ago while on holiday, and is for the time being at least somewhat limited in what he can do. Like me, Ian has been writing a retirement blog for the past eight years. His blog is called 'Living the dream - Retirement in Frigiliana', an excellent read about anything and everything that comes his way, social, political, cultural, religious. 

His Spanish is pretty fluent and some of his blog postings are written in Spanish for the sake of local readers, as many people in the village are aware of the interest he takes in life there. He's a Catholic convert from Anglicanism, and remains very open and ecumenically spirited. When we met last year in the church shop one day, we had a good conversation, so I was looking forward to a lively pastoral visit, and certainly had one. 

Their hillside terraced house is a three storey dwelling with spectacular views of this marvellous pueblo blanco. We sat on a shady balcony drinking coffee and we chatted for two hours. A couple from Cardiff arrived at the house the same time I did, inspecting with a view to purchase. Having seen in the lives of others what old age and infirmity can be like for expatriates with family members far away, they are planning for their future long term back in Britain, the sensible option, and as Ian said: "Our hearts will still remain here." While they remain active, longish holiday spells in Spain will still be possible. The dream is still there to be lived, but in a more measured way.

I don't know why, but this prompted me to recall a conversation from our time in Geneva between expatriate International Civil Servants discussing pensions. Apparently at some stage when their appointment ceased to be temporary, they are given the choice of currency in which their pension will eventually be paid. At retirement, many return home, though some with residence rights, stay in Switzerland or France voisine, or choose a different country altogether. So, what are the criteria for choosing your currency of pension remuneration, given it may be linked to the kind of pension fund that holds your money? Swiss Franc? Dollar? Sterling? Yen? Which suits you best? 

It may boil down to which currency you have long term confidence in, or how well your currency does in foreign exchange, if you decide to move around. Or perhaps where your loyalties lie, where you call 'home', even if you don't spend all your time there. What you can afford on a reduced fixed income, or what you wish to afford is also a consideration, as well as the cost of living, which can differ so greatly. Strong currencies go far in third world homelands, but less so in Europe and parts of Asia where the cost of living is high. 

It's a complex decision most of us never need to think about. When we left Switzerland, my small mandatory 'pension pot' in Swiss Francs was turned into Sterling and added to savings, for the sake of simple management, rather than have small sums in foreign currency arriving and regularly losing a portion of its value, adding complexity to the filling in of tax forms. Only rich people can afford account fees and taxes to keep funds in Switzerland and live elsewhere. There's no going back for us except for holidays, and these get less and less frequent, as years pass. Great times, like those I now enjoy in retirement serving expatriate communities in Spain or anywhere else I'm asked to go. 

But nothing lasts forever. To everything its due season. For everything, thanksgiving.

Frigiliana's Patronal Weekend

We had the best possible reason for leaving the chaplaincy house early and taking ourselves out for the day. A preferred candidate for appointment as Chaplain was to come and see the house before making the final commitment. So, we drove up to nearby Frigiliana, with a view to having lunch at 'La Bodeguilla', where we ate and enjoyed excellent cooking a couple of times when we were last here, a year ago. 

The meal was a long slow lazy afternoon pleasure, punctuated by the odd sound of explosions from the hillside above and a single burst of fireworks from a finca below us on the hillside. These were, presumably part of technical rehearsals for the village patronal festival of San Antonio, about which our waitress informed us. The saint's day is Monday 13th, so why not have a fun fair and an open air concert and a disco or two, to liven up the early summer night air?

Frigiliana has lots of small shops with a variety of interesting craft works, pottery, linen, jewellery. There are also a variety of small to medium sized restaurants tucked away behind the streets, each with its own terrace and view across the verdant valley and enclosing mountains. Some of the older streets are very steep, and merciful not accessible to traffic apart from two wheelers. The winding narrow main thoroughfare still carries traffic. Vans and larger SUVs in particular make pedestrian passage difficult and on times risky. Nobody seems to want to park up and convey their goods or passengers over the last half mile by other means. Such a pity, because this is damaging for quality of life for locals as well as visitors. Why better equals bigger in the modern automotive design portfolio seems to go unquestioned, when it comes to environmental and social impact.

We browsed the shops before lunch, and again after lunch. I took but a few photos only. I already have hundreds of the streets to enjoy from previous visits.

Back in Nerja, fences in public spaces are being mounted with chip-board panels to take posters to host forthcoming municipal elections. It seems that each year we've been here in June there's some sort of election campaign going on. I wait with interest to see which round of elections are due to take place this time around. Back in Blighty, dialogue of the deaf over the EC referendum continues almost to the point of overshadowing the European Cup competition, which starts this weekend. My vote has been cast in the former. The latter fails to grab my interest, except to observe that somewhere or another rival football fans are fighting each other again.

   

Town of three faiths

It was Owain's 37th birthday yesterday. He's taking a week's holiday in Berlin, a place he's become rather fond of in recent years. He sent us a selfie to say he's there, having a good time exploring the city by bike, as his AirBnB apartment has the bonus availability of free bike use during his stay. How splendid. It's a very bike frendly city.

I walked to the Church shop to celebrate the midweek Eucharist, and Clare joined me while I was having a coffee next door at Rosi's bar afterwards. Then we went down to nearby Playa Torrecilla so she could swim, before doing some shopping and returning for lunch.  After siesta, I took her by car to the top of San Juan Capistrano, and showed her where I'd been hunting for hoopoe photos without success so far. It was too hot for any serious walking, but at least Clare now has an idea of a place that I usually walk to when I have the time.

This morning we drove up to Frigiliana to have a look around, and ended up having lunch there in la Bodeguilla restaurant near San Antonio Parish church (where I took a wedding two weeks ago) which specialises in local food and recipes. What a treat! I think we'll be returning there to explore more of the menu before Clare returns home.

Frigiliana is a lovely hill town of Moorish origin. In the mediaeval heart of the village, history panels fashioned from glazed tiles adorn the walls with narratives about its arab history and the impact of the reconquista on a town that became a temporary refuge for those fleeing Christian armies determined to dominate a region in which Jews, Christians and Muslims had learned to live together in peace and harmony under Moorish rule, but that was destroyed thanks to the reconquista. Frigiliana today brands itself for visitors as the town of three faiths, although I can't say I noticed either a living mosque or synagogue among today's public buildings, only churches.

Pope Francis recently spoke of Sarajevo as 'the Jerusalem of the West', a city where Jews, Christians and Mulims have centuries of history living alongside each other peacefully. And yet, this visionary asset of cultural diversity and mutual regard, in so many places has become the focal point of power struggles that not even secular democratic governance can contain. Places where conciliation and compromise are an accepted way of life for the common good remain vulnerable to people reluctant to trust that anything good can happen when they are not in control. What is it that we need to learn to contain the control freaks of this world, and allow others to build trust and make a life together on their own terms?

 

Conundrum

I truly enjoy being able to take as much time as I need to retrieve and print off the church bulletin for Sunday, and then sit and work at my sermon for the week. I can write something from scratch if an insight grabs me, or trawl through my web archive to see if ideas from anything I've preached and uploaded over the past twelve years will serve as a starting point.  Even if it's worth saying again, it's usually a matter of editing and re-writing to adapt the thoughts to a different context. This takes just as long as having to start from scratch. Even so, I find it's an enjoyable creative enterprise. 

Its not that much different from any artist exploring motifs and symbols through the use of a variety of physical media. My model for working on a sermon is still that of BBC's radio correspondents, whose words are models of conciseness as well as insight. Having something of value to say is one thing. Getting it across before your audience loses its concentration is another.

My afternoon outing was to Frigiliana, by car, getting petrol on the way out and food supplies from the Lidl store nearby on the way back. The last time I visited this pueblo blanco dating back to the 11th century kingdom of the Moors was four years ago at this time, with Clare. Photos I took then say it was in May, as the town was festooned as now with mayoral election banners. It's a lovely place, and it's understandable so many expats want to live there or take holidays there.

One feature of the town is street corner kiosks containing penny-in-the slot machines, than can entertain adults and children alike, with moving mechanical figures and audio soundtracks relating to the town's millennium of history. It's an ingeniously retro cut above digital tourism video, serving the same purpose in a far more engaging way, whilst earning a few euros for the town into the bargain.  

Zut! I didn't take a photo of the first slot machine on the main square which I encountered. Perhaps I remembered that I'd done so before. But this time it was algo diferente. On the table, in a domestic scene portrayed, was a little netbook. I noticed it, but didn't take a picture. When I checked my web archive from four years ago, the table was bare. Bother, I'll have to return for a photo. Not exactly a penance, as it's a place that offers so many different and attractive perspectives to visitors.

After shopping at Lidl's on the way back, it was impossible not to notice a one legged man in a wheel chair at the gate, begging. He was positioned in such a way that incomers wouldn't notice him. As for outgoers, only a car with a passenger might easily be able to stop and offer alms. I wondered how new he might be to this. I stopped, got out of the car, and gave him what spare change I had, and received a huge smile for my few words, as inadequate as my dineros.  

Yesterday, begging by the Balcon de Europa were a man missing his left arm and a girl, barely twenty by the looks of her. So many poor people here, for whatever reason falling out of the social support system, or not getting enough from it to survive. Tourists give. Rarely does anyone who give have the language ability to find out why they are there.

Back in Cardiff, I rarely give to beggars. Some in the city centre I know have been there as long as I have. Many behave and appear as if they are supporting drug habits by begging, rather than a family, not coping with serious disability the state cannot provide for. In any society there will be begging  professionals, getting a living from tourists. 

How can anyone distinguish the really needy from chancers when the circumstances of need vary so greatly? Is there an answer?