Afflicted, coping

Since Sunday my lower back has been giving me grief. The trouble which developed after tripping and falling in the dark at Montreux a couple of months ago is recurring, despite being sorted out by osteomyologist Kay when I returned to Cardiff. Maybe I didn't have enough recovery time at home. Although the discomfort hasn't stopped me walking 5-6 kilometres daily this week. 

Exercise is essential as the affliction makes sitting for any length of time painful. I just have to keep moving, which is tiring in its own right. Getting comfortable at night also isn't easy, so the last few days have been spent avoiding doing anything that makes things worse. Just as well I have had no duty assignments. I am having to learn to be patient with myself, and manage this with what I learned from Kay.

On Halloween afternoon I walked to Garrucha and found the 19th century Capilla de Nuestra Señora del Carmen in that part of the town centre which houses the ayuntamiento buildings. In the absence of any midweek Anglican celebration, I'd intended to go to Mass there on Todos Santos and the Dia de los Muertos, but was not capable of doing this when the time came. I had to settle for praying in solitude on one of the church's great feast days.

Yesterday, All Saints' day the charco was graced with a visit from around fifty egrets, which settled for a few hours during the day, upstream of the bridge. But, they didn't stay. I heard from another bird watcher not long after my arrival that a flock of egrets had been sighted up-river, but apparently this was not a regular occurrence. This is just a fraction of the numbers of egrets that roosted regularly here this time last year. It must be something to do with their food supply hereabouts.

I learned from Clare about the death of our former neighbour Mike Creighton Griffiths in Queen Anne Square. The news has taken this long to reach us, largely because I have been away so  much. I used to meet his daughter Cindy at Tai Chi classes, but the last time I saw her was six months ago, perhaps just before he died. When I was Rector of Central Cardiff, he and his wife Valé would ask us in for drinks before supper and we'd enjoy hours arguing, setting the world to rights. His working life was spent as a public relations organiser, and although a nominal Anglican, he was appointed to manage the Papal visit of John-Paul II to Cardiff back in 1982. A larger than life character who took great pleasure in offering hospitality. May he rest in peace.

Seaside shrine

Another hot day today, but not humid, so the weather was bearable. In the morning, I prepared and sent out the documents for the next BCRP Board meeting. It took me more time than usual as accessing what I needed in our on-line file system took longer than usual. Fortunately the documents needed were also attached to findable emails, so I had a work around solution when needed.

I went out food shopping before lunch and went through recent photos and stored them off-camera ready for uploading on my next office visit. Just as was nodding off for a siesta a phone call came in about officiating at a funeral this Saturday, in Fuengirola Crematorium. I was happy to agree to this, as it's familiar territory from two years ago. As it's a September Saturday, I imagine the Costa del Sol Chaplains are busy with wedding blessings. There are few of these in Malaga. Funerals, sure, but also Christenings of African infants from a constituency for which Christian tradition and custom is still alive. It makes a refreshing change.

Before supper I walked the promenade westwards as far as the first tunnel, to investigate an area under the cliff at the end of the footpath, covered by a canopy, visible from afar. What I discovered was a shrine set into the rock, with a long line of benches set against the rock decorated in blue and white tessera and facing out to the sea shore. At the entry to the domain was a linear fountain, below a rock garden above which was the legend: Nuestra Señora del Carmen. This area is dedicated to those who have lost their lives at sea.

There was a notice in front of the shrine asking people not deposit votive candles there. Instead, people brought fresh flowers, and there were lots of them, tidily arranged. I watched an old man praying from his mobility buggy, a young girl in a swimming costume bringing a single glower, and a young man bringing a bunch of white carnations.
That canopy, partly sailcloth, partly netting is to protect visitors from rock fragments falling from crumbly cliff faces above.

I returned via the main street, but curiosity distracted me up a side road which led up a steep hill to Rincon's cemetery, with its maze of burial walls, mostly full, each niche decorated with fading artificial flowers. Only for All Souls and maybe Easter do these tend to get replaced by cut flowers. I noticed a new almost empty wall of burial niches, half the size of others, probably destined for cremated remains, now that this has become more widespread in the past half century.

As I was about to leave, Clare skyped me, and we talked while I strolled home, right up to the time of the Archers, and the attempted murder trial of Helen née Archer. Compelling listening this!