St David's Day absentee

Today, I had a morning meeting at a pasteleria in La Cala village. I didn´t know exactly where the shop was, but googled the name and that produced an address and location. When I arrived there, I was quite annoyed to find myself in a cul de sac without shops. I could only conclude that the retaill outlet had a separate business address in a private dwelling. My host rang me and we arranged to meet outside the church, and then we walked to the shop, which was much further from the centre of the village than I'd expected. The village, in fact, was twice as big as I'd understood it to be.

La Cala has developed westwards lately along the line of the beach. On the east side the beach ends in a rocky outcrop, one of several along the shore, defining a number of sandy coves. Each trip I make into Fuengirola on the N340 I see colonies of Cormorants roosting on the rocks. One of these days I´ll walk in that direction and take some photos. Just behind the beach in the old village centre is a Moorish watch tower brick built, twenty metres high. None of the surrounding building look particularly old. With the exception of two ten storey hotels in the newer section, the buildings are low-rise, somewhat in contrast to other sections of this coastline. The village is hemmed in by the highway, so most of the residential expansion has been up the sides of the valley that runs inland and up towards Mijas. La Cala means 'cove'. It's one of the several points of access from the sea to the old village of Mijas nearly a thousand feet above.

In the afternoon I went up to Alhaurin to join in the children's Mustard Seed Club pre-Lenten activity session in the cemetery chapel, all around the theme of Christ's temptations. Once more it was beautifully organised. There were fourteen children and about twenty adults present all told. I got to accompany the singing of Frere Jacques with Lenten words on my guitar, and we ended up by eating pancakes. These had been purchased in a big freezer pack from Mercadona, and thawed conveniently for use on the day, rather than a pancake making production line being set up. There's no kitchen at the cemetery chapel, only a toilet, A kitchen would be too much to ask.

I had to call into the church office on my way back as I hadn't yet had an opportunity to print a copy of my sermon. When I arrived I found I didn't have my office keys, so I had to call Jim and ask him to come over and let me in, which he did graciously. I enjoyed the outing to Alhaurin, but I haven't yet found a way to drive with comfortable ease while my back mends, so I was quite tired on my return, too tired to contemplate attending the St David's Day evening concert in the Fuengirola Salon de Varietes, and pleased I'd found time to prepare supper in advance before going out.