Natural engineering

After breakfast, a walk around the nature reserve to discover how the sand bar, denuded of vegetation at its southernmost end had been re-forged along the line of least resistance for the flood waters, giving an interesting shape to the lake's sea shore boundary. The lake waters still teem with fish. There's an abundance of coots, a few mallards. a heron, grasshoppers,and butterflies. I heard and saw briefly on the ground a single warbler. A puddle in a mud patch under the road bridge played host to scores of small brown frogs. The only notable absence, which I observed last night was the colony of egrets. Winter flood waters may have wrecked the habitats of some species, though nature is resilient, so maybe the egrets will return some time.

At the end of the afternoon, I drove to Arboleas for the bereavement visit, meeting the wife and son of the man who died. They had been able to nurse him themselves at home right to the end, which is a real blessing for an old man. Co-incidentally, I officiated this time last year at the funeral of another man who'd lived in a nearby street of this urbanizacion. When the place was built in the early nineties, most of those who settled there were retired British or other European expats, content to live out the rest of their days far from their native soil. Whether this generation will be replaced by other retirees in the present political and economic climate remains to be seen. I don't suppose I'll end my life somewhere abroad. Much as I appreciate the climate and landscape of places I visit, I have yet to find a place where I feel I could settle permanantly. Where we live in Pontcanna is far from being my ideal location. It's a compromise, we can live with, and probably die with.

No internet connection all day today. The device is working, and displays a green light, but doesn;t deliver, and this time I know not why. I investigated the router firmware, but this didn't shed any light on the matter. Can it have exceeded its monthly data cap already in 36 hours? I'm not such a heavy user, no video only a few hours of radio streaming and some VOIP calls, unless yesterday's call from Geoff, lasting over an hour wiped the monthly allowance. There's no way of finding out however. The router isn't as smart as a smartphone.

Mojácar bound

I was pleased not to have to get up extra early for my Alicante bound flight this morning, and said goodbye to Clare at ten to nine. I was less pleased when no 61 bus appeared after twenty minutes waiting. I that time normally three should have appeared. Feeling desperate and furious at Cardiff Bus, I strode down to a bus stop on Cowbridge Road, and caught an X1 bus to the bottom of St Mary Street, after a two minute wait. As I boarded, three 61 buses came past on to Cowbridge Road within minutes of each other, one a double decker. What on earth is going on? What excuse can there be for this kind of unpredictability when buses now use digital scheduling mechanisms that synchornise with bus stop heads up displays?

Thankfully, a T9 Airport shuttle bus pulled in a minute after my arrival at the Custom House Street stop, the one after I had intended to catch. Just as I arrived at Vueling bag drop, the desks opened to receive luggage from a queue of about forty people, and I began to calm down and relax. Forty give minutes later, I sat and waited in the departure lounge for my flight to be called and drank a coffee. The flight left on time and arrived early. By half past four, I was being waved at by Tony and Janice who'd kindly come to collect me. My original plan had been to take a coach and be picked up, late evening, from Huercal Overa bus station, an hour from Mojacar, but anxiety about whether my back would cope with such a journey, when healing nicely after a treatment by Kay on Monday, led me to ask if I could be picked up.

Just after seven, we reached Mojácar. I deposited my bags in the Chaplaincy apartment, and was then taken out to supper at the Mediterraneo beach Restaurant at the other end of town. It was a very pleasant experience with a full view of the sea with an almost full moon, through the dining room window. Then, back to the apartment to unpack and get on line. It was easier said than done unfortunately, as the router was not functionng properly. 

It's a Huwawei 4G hub, designed to link to a carrier signal from a local cellphone mast, and deliver fast-ish broadband to any number of home devices. I discovered that it wasn;t working since it had hit its data cap. Interestingly enough, it has a second 4G PAYG sim for top-up purposes, arranged in a rather convoluted way by phone to the account managment call centre. I may be wrong, but having read the instructions provided about this, the device had the drained PAYG SIM card in it. I found the other SIM, inserted it and immediately had broadband wifi, since the previous months data cap had been replaced by the October allowance. The system had been idle over the week since the previous locum Chaplain left. 

The concept makes sense, but it would be more effective if it was possible to augment the data allowance via a mobile phone. Perhaps you can, but nobody has bothered yet, as there's a different habitual way of getting things to work. It's just a bit disconcerting when arriving in a new place and having to troubleshoot before phoning home and going to bed. Ah well, never mind. It's good to be here again in a familiar place.

Walk in the port

A second full night's sleep in a row for me! The neighbourhood and the apartment is remarkably quiet for the center of a city. I pottered around all morning, listening to UK election day news on the radio, wondering what the outcome will be, but I have no intention of staying up to hear the results tonight. The apartment has good broadband, although the solid construction of this sixties building does curb the reach of the signal at the far end, in the kitchen, where I often listen while I cook or eat at home. No two electronic devices have exactly the same capacity to fix on a weak signal, so I have to try them out in turn to see which gives the best results on wi-fi, to save using up data on a 4G phone account. 

A visit to the El Corte Ingles electronic gadget store to buy a wi-fi signal relay device is possible. Finding the right place to plug it in where it can best transmit and receive is another issue. As the first inhabitant of a newly purchased Fuengirola Chaplain's house three years ago, this was the solution to the same problem. Being a more modern house, however, it had a much better distribution of power sockets to make use of. Always best to make use of what's given, if you can.

After quite a late lunch, I went out for my first longish walk of my stay, starting on the Paseo de la Malagueta and making my way to the furthest extent of the eastern arm of the port. The sun was thinly veiled in mist, so I didn't suffer from over exposure. Once you leave the Paseo, there's almost no shade to be had until you reach the two huge Cruise ship terminal buildings. It's the first time I've seen these structures and their accompanying docking facilities. There are no cruise ships in port right now, only an assortment of container ships, bulk carriers and the odd goods vehicle ferry that transports stuff to and from North African ports.

At the town end of the harbour, there's a 300m double deck promenade. The quay level features restaurants and luxury designer retail outlets aimed at cruise clientele. The upper level has a few open air bars and some small gardens, but is mostly open for ship spotters to stand and stare and walkers to promenade in style. Towering over the promenade is 'El Farino' a substantial lighthouse which celebrates the 200th anniversary of its construction this year. 

At the town end is a stylishly constructed modern art gallery called the Pompidou Centre. I found it quite irritating that it was necessary to enquire on-line what the function of this building was, as no information was readily visible to indicate this externally, unless you went inside. I think it's pretentious to trade on having a universal public reputation. It's like meeting some grandee who states emphatically: "Surely you know who I am."

The top level promenade crosses over a bridge beside the art gallery. You can walk through this to access La Malagueta barrio. This has a history board relating to the coastal railway which once ran from Malaga to Velez Malaga. The bridge pays homage to the tunnel through which the train ran into the port. The line closed in the sixties. Most of its railway artifacts soon disappeared, except tunnels along the route, some of which are still in use as part of the coastal footpath running along the old track-bed. The great tourism development started in the same era as the railway disappeared. I imagine some developers and planners may look back with regret at losing such an asset for both mass tourism and local transport. Road traffic congestion however well managed, is a liability and a burden to bear for the foreseeable future. 

In the evening, I re-established my acquaintance with the main maritime traffic website, to see if would be possible to work out which ships I'd seen in dock - as ever, a fascinating exploration. Just as well too, there's no telly here, and it's impossible to watch UK TV channels on my devices, due to digital rights management controls. So much for freedom of information!