High road to Marbella

I drove inland up to Coin for this morning's Eucharist, hoping that I'd remember exactly where to turn when I got to the outskirts of the town, as last time I came I didn't drive there, making it less easy to remember. I got there without error however and arrived first. Four people came for the service, and as there was no organist we had a said service. As it was the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination, we shared our experiences of where we were when we heard the news. Only one of us was too young to  remember! 

Afterwards we went into the town and found a bar where we chatted and drank coffee for half an hour. I was encouraged to return by the long route over the mountains and down to Marbella, and back along the N340 to Fuengirola. The road was excellent and very quiet, and the visibility perfect. Above the thousand metre mark, the pine forests were enlivened by splashes of dark red and bright yellow deciduous trees, now at last losing their paler green. 

A brown tourism sign pointing to the Refugio de Juanar caught my attention. Out of curiosity, I turned off the main road and followed a narrow winding metalled road five kilometres up into the Sierra Blanca de Ojen.

High up in a secluded valley at the end of this road there's a modest sized hotel restaurant, styling itself as a 'Parador'. I parked nearby and walked for a kilometre through the forest, following signs to a 'mirador' on a rocky promontory overlooking Marbella, a good 1,200m below and 10km away. In fact there's a signed footpath right down to the shore, and another along the crests which on of one of Spain's network euro-signed GR hiking paths. A great place on a bright sunny day. Not so when winter sets in, I suspect.

Getting back from there was swift and easy. I went to the office and worked there a while, skyped Clare, and bought some food supplies before attending the monthly ministry team meeting, attended by wardens, readers and worship leaders. It was good to sit in on the conversation and share the plans being made, and not to be chairing the meeting! After preliminary discussions and consulting with Clare, I confirmed my willingness to return in January and serve as locum Chaplain until Easter. Being part of a team again is an experience I value, and have missed over the past six years, since the Archbishop decided to dismember the Benefice of Central Cardiff. Now I have the luxury of participation without the buck stopping at my door. Ah, the pleasures of retirement - feeling useful without responsibilities to worry over!

  

Return to Costa del Sol

I got up at half past six, and was out of the house with my luggage heading to the bus station by ten to seven. Half way there a 61 bus conveniently appeared and I took it the rest of the way there, and had plenty of time to get the seven twenty five Cardiff airport bus. Still, I believe, not enough promotion of this excellent half hour shuttle service is being done. There were only three others on board.

The airport seemed very quiet when I arrived to check in. I stopped immediately to drink the coffee I'd missed at breakfast time, and headed for the security bag check at ten past eight, only to find that there were over fifty people queuing, and only one of the three available bag scanners staffed and operational. The boarding call for the Vueling flight to Málaga was made just as I was cleared. That's thirty five minutes compared to ten in Bristol. The number of staff and scanners in Bristol is higher, matching the higher volume of traffic, but Cardiff's security portal is running at one third capacity. Staff are excellent, but being worked too hard for their own good. The new airport management has some catching up to do in order make the place attractive to customers and new airlines.

I sat next to a lady from Llanmaes going to stay in Nerja for a spell. It turned out she was Anglican, and parishioner of Llanmaes into the Llantwit Major Rectorial Benefice, not far from the airport. We talked intensely throughout the flight, as she has a long standing dedication to working internationally  with the Church's mission among Jewish people. Apart from the few occasions when I've fallen asleep on take off and awakened on landing, this is one of the only occasions where I had not a moment to enjoy the ride, staring out of the window. A fascinating conversation however.

Churchwarden Bill met me, as arranged, outside the main Arrival entrance door, and drove me to Fuengirola, where I met Val, the church secretary. We had lunch together, then went down to St Andrews church in the district of Los Boliches to pick up a Citroen C3 for me to drive for the day until the outgoing Chaplain's diesel C4 car is returned after his departure tomorrow. We had a brief look around the church, then Val escorted me to the apartment where I'll be staying, a couple of miles inland. 

I'm in this ground floor one bedroomed apartment. Here's a section of the Residence El Albañil, looking from the road below. My apartment is at garden level behind the hedge third from left.

And here's the view from the study window. More a place to contemplate than to work! Thankfully there is also a well equipped church office in town, about 3 miles away.

 After unpacking, I drove down to the nearest Mercadonna supermarket and stocked up with food. Later, I went back to St Andrew's Church in Los Boliches church, one the communes of Fuengirola, for an All Souls prayer service, led by lay Reader Linda and her husband Peter. I arrived early and went for a wander around the area, found another supermarket and bought a couple of essentials I'd forgotten first time around - onions and lemons.

It was dark by the time the service was over, and I missed my turning inland going back to the apartment, but eventually backtracked until I spotted a familiar portal I couldn't spot in the dark first time around at the street junction I needed. Only at this moment did it dawn on me that I hadn't properly memorised the address, and there was no map in the car, so I was relying entirely on landmarks registered in the two trips I'd made and nothing looks the same at night.

   

Anyway, I returned safely, and cooked a vegetable sauce with white beans to eat with pasta, before hunting down BBC Four wrongly marked on the Astra satellite menu, and watching Inspector Montalbano before heading to bed, tired but happy to be here, just hoping that my sermon prepared yesterday would be relevant in this new context.