Sunday frustration

A warm sunny day but with high cloud in fascinating slow changing formations during the day. We drove to Iglesia San Miguel after a long slow breakfast, and arrived early to help set up for the service, not that much help is needed as the team are efficient at getting everything ready in the twenty minutes before the service is due to start at noon. There were twenty six of us today, and some hearty singing, but by the time we got to Bar Atalaya after the service, the regulars had gone, leaving a family of four from North Wales that regularly comes and goes during the year.

When we returned to Church House, Clare didn't feel like eating much as she was feeling nauseous, so I cooked half an aubergine with some onions, courgette and potatoes for myself. Finally this morning I acquired boarding passes this week's ida y vuelta home and back. Annoyingly Vueling's system wouldn't let me acquire the first pass alone on Thursday. I had to wait until today, to receive both passes in a two page email.  Why issue the passes jointly and not separately? 

Adding a digital version to Google Wallet as stated, produced a QR code of the first pass only and ignored the second. I had to edit the original pdf, and extract the bar code into a jpeg image, to get Wallet to add the second boarding pass - in the form of a bar code, not converted to a QR code. Not that it matters, both work with airport scanners. What a frustrating waste of two hours time this was. The rush to innovate digitally on so many levels isn't going early as well as its authors believe it is. 

We went for a walk up the hill, and then down to the sea early evening, intending to dine out, but the Mirador de Guilches restaurant was again closed, and when we reached the restaurant by the Playa de Vilches, we were told the kitchen was closed. No more meals, alas! 

We trekked back up the hill, and I improvised a dish using the other half of the aubergine plus an onion, with an 'emergency' can of lentils cooked with a tiny amount of veg for flavour. Accompanied by some judia redonda (aka French Beans) and carrots, it turned out to be quite flavoursome much to my relief. It was such a disappointment not to be about to dine out in view of the sea and setting sun. the Mirador restaurant is usually open on a Sunday, but last week and this it's been closed Sunday to Tuesday. Here it's still low season, with insufficient passing trade to justify staying open.

I spent the rest of the evening reading the seemingly anomalous last chapter of my Spanish novel that starts in an unexpected situation, but turns around half way and yet again confronts the reader with the subject of the novel 'La nina mal' - the bad girl, up to no good again, a charming attractive woman from the impoverished Peruvian barrio of Miraflores in Lima, who knows how to exploit the vulnerability of rich men and her forty year long relationship with the narrator, a school friend who also flees the barrio to Europe, through education and hard work. A remarkable portrayal of different ways in which poverty affects people's lives and destinies, making one person generous and compassionate, and another greedy ruthless and deceitful. It's still slow going due to the register of the narrative language and liberal use of Latin American words and slang, but the essence of the story, its humour and sadness shine through in any case.