Another outing to Málaga

When I woke up this morning, it was cold and overcast. It felt like the weather had gone back by a month. I remembered that it was my late sister Pauline's birthday, so I exchanged WhatsApp messages with her children Jules and Nicky. I resolved to go to Málaga, but was slow getting going, due to a long exchange of messages with Rufus. It was midday by the time I got on a train. It was already quite full and even more so within a few stops en route. It's no wonder given the tens of thousands of people who have taken up the offer of a free season ticket on the Cercanias lines. 

By the time the train approached Málaga, cloud had dispersed, it was sunny and mild and the streets were busy with pedestrians. I walked down to the Palmeria de las Sorpresas on the main quay of the port where the restaurants were filled with outdoor diners, and the pavements quite crowded with pedestrians, half a dozen buskers, a puppeteer, a group of fit and handsome young men break dancing in front of a crowd, plus stag and hen parties - the place was buzzing with vitality. Then I walked back through the Old Town where every open restaurant with outdoor tables was full of clients and the streets filled with shoppers. It was so invigorating after a quiet, mostly solitary week. 

My last port of call was the Mercado de Atarazanas. I walked around camera in hand, but couldn't find a place to start taking pictures. I was so surrounded by colour, aromas, and the buzz of chatter, all I could do was wander around absorbing and enjoying the moment. It's such a special place. After two hours walking I was tired and starting to get hungry, so I took the train back to Fuengirola, went back to the house and cooked a very late lunch.

In the evening, I switched on the telly for the first time, and explored its functioning channels. There are a few showing old dubbed American movies, national and local news, and one station with a programme showcasing performing arts in Andalusia, which I was glad to find. I'm doing quite well with understanding what's said, and suspect the more I listen the easier it will get, as my vocabulary is quite good after seven years of learning, despite things I forget or am slow to retrieve. There remain, however, grammatical constructions which will, to my mind, always seem bizarre and unnatural.

Clare and I chatted after supper. Owain paid her an overnight visit, which was opportune because of Auntie Ann being with Clare for the weekend. Then I finished off tomorrow's sermon, printed it and attempted to go to bed early, feeling too tired to read. Having walked a good distance today, without my ankle giving me trouble, my pace was slightly quicker. Extra energy expended maybe, but worth it.

A striking difference

A mild day, with clouds and sunshine, good for walking, and after a housekeeping morning, I did a circuit of the port and the Old Town, and simply enjoyed being back in this wonderful city, with so much happening to notice.

The quayside Palmeria de Sorpresas seems strangely empty now last summer's exhibition of thirty odd life size bronze sculptures by Elena Laverón under the banner Caminantes en el Puerto has moved on. They attracted a great deal of positive attention from passers-by who now can only walk, and pause less often to take pictures with the life sized oeuvres. Back last summer, I walked that route several times a week. Their absence has given me a far better idea of both the social impact and the value of good public art. How will the cultural commissars of the Ajuntamiento de Málaga follow on from this, I wonder?

International Women's Day is being celebrated today, I don't know about elsewhere, but here it's accompanied by advocating a 'Huelga Feminista' - women on strike, refusing to go shopping, and conform to the common stereotype.

It made me smile, then laugh out loud. Listening to the early news, we were reminded of the many outstanding achievements of women in our time, and how far from genuinely equal opportunity we still are, but, as ever in the mass media, it was all talk within the media bubble about the educated privileged elites of society.

Women worldwide still take most responsibility for obtaining everyday food provisions, and home making. Shopping in all its forms, whether for basic essentials or for rare luxuries is part of a woman's daily routine. The notion of a shopping strike is quixotic, whimsically comic, but makes the point about something all too easily taken for granted, a systemic part of existing inequality. Thank heavens for a little anarchic provocation! But can we think of what a world would look like where all women and men have, make use of equal opportunities, while at the same time valuing the different approaches and priorities women and men have in life? This isn't impossible, but essential to my mind. In every generations, women and men have so much to learn from each other about how to address the issues threatening our very existence today.

Unusual port visitor

With nothing planned to do today, I started work on next Sunday's sermon, wrote a few emails and did domestic chores until well into the afternoon. When I finally set my mind on walking over to El Corte Ingles, I noticed from the end of the street the five masts of a big sailing ship above the trees along the sea front, so climbed the steep path up the Gibralfaro for a better view and a photograph. It's a luxury cruise liner which supplements its ship's engines with sails when weather permits, the largest of a series built in France for Club Med in the late 1980s, but now run by Windstar Cruises.

I then continued walking to El Corte Ingles, through the back streets of the Old Town. Much of this is now quite familiar from spending time here last autumn. It takes under half an hour on foot to reach here from the apartment, which is what Clare wanted me to find out.

I visited the store's electronic gadget department, and was mildly disappointed to see very little that was different from what's on offer in John Lewis and PC World back home. Sometimes in the past I've seen new products brought to market in Spain well before the UK, and things brought to market there which are never seen in a British High Street. Demand for new domestic computers, whether desktop or portable, has levelled off in recent years with the rise of tablets and smartphones, and with the latest arrival of voice activated devices delivering information services into the home. It's no something which interests me much. 

No matter how clever it all is, it's potentially intrusive, and may prevent users from making an effort to find out things for themselves rather than wait for the helpful suggestion from a worktop device. I feel the same about SatNavs too. I'd rather learn for myself how to find my way around a place or around a map, by observation, and only use a location sensing device in support, if needed.

The return trip took me to the Palmeria de las Sorpresas quay to inspect the ship I'd seen from afar. It's the MVY Wind Surf, with room for over 300 passengers in spacious accommodation. There are cruise ships which take 5-10 times that number of passengers, catering for the mass market with high standards, in not so much private space, and these are extremely popular for those who cannot afford premium prices. These ships are all interesting from an architectural perspective, but for my own needs, I happy with river cruising on an altogether much smaller scale.

While I was there, I took photographs of the fourteen 'Caminantes en el Puerto' sculptures by Elena Laverón on display as part of the 200th anniversary celebrations for La Farola, now destined to become a maritime museum, walking past them in both directions. The results are here.

It's unlikely I'll be about when Wind Surf leaves harbour, or that I'll see it with its sails unfurled. That would just be too lucky on my part.