Nature walks

I woke up to bright sunshine and mild temperature, with the sound of a hoopoe coming from the trees along the road outside the house is pleasantly relaxing. I've not yet caught up on a full night's sleep, but I'm not suffering from it. The change of environment makes me feel sharp and fully alert. The measured sound of heeled shoes on a paved floor travels from a neighbour's house along concrete beams first thing in the morning. It was reminded of the chaplains terraced house in Nerja where I stayed on four of my five visits there. The walls were very thin. A strange counterpoint to the Hoopoe's call: hoo-hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo-hoo, and so on. I got up and made myself a bowl of porridge before everyone else emerged for breakfast. Then I got out my Chromebook and tried to recall the essentials of the last three days to update my blog.

Mid morning, Clare John and I walked down to the Platja del Rec along the path along the stream, and then along the path behind the dunes as far as the headland overlooking the next bay to the north, where there's a posh looking hotel behind the beach. Again, lots of birdsong, warblers, blackbirds, the occasional tit. Grassy patches on the rocky headland are populated with purple flowers and scarlet poppies, a discreet but attention grabbing splash of colour. Poppies in abundance flourish in grassy waterside patches along our route. We see a teenage girl seated on a bench chatting to a mate on her phone in a mix of Catalan and accented English. It reminded me of bilingual youngsters back home in Wales. She was still there when we returned an hour later!

We passed a Lidl supermarket and I bought packets of fruit and nuts, as I was feeling light headed, as I often seem to, rather than feeling hungry. A few nibbles on the go soon dispel the sensation thankfully. John and Veronica put together a stir fry for lunch with tofu peppers onions and a sauce of lemon honey and tahini. Very tasty, easy to remember and emulate at home. 

After uploading the morning's photos, Clare and I went out for a short walk to find a nearby park with a skate park and playground elements, including a short zip wire for the under twelves. Then we crossed over the road through an underpass giving access to the big Mercadona supermarket and inspected it, out of interest rather than need to buy anything. This and Lidl's not far away are laid out in their own distinct pattern, reproduced in all their new build stores. This predictability makes it easy to plan a shopping trip and navigate the store wherever you find one. It's different if you're having to adapt your retail offer to an existing building so customers have to familiarise themselves with different layouts. No wonder the new generation of retail stores doing so well. Predictably, I spotted a pied wagtail running around the car park outside. Just as they do in the UK.

After taking Clare back to the house I went across the road and along the stream which once fed the mill which supplies the town's flour from the 14th to the 20th century. The building and its mill ponds have been restored and a well kept. It's become a high class gourmet restaurant. A path alongside it leads up to a hamlet of ancient farm buildings, all restored, yet to be explored. There are several nightingales singing on the other side of the river, and swallows flying low to feed on insects near ground level. We also saw scores and swifts foraging 300 metres above us. Just amazing, so many different birds! 

We had a light late supper and managed to get to bed when we usually do, even if Central European time says it's midnight already. As for timings I found both my cameras had different incorrect time settings. As a result photo transfer has been unnecessarily muddled. Why didn't I think of that beforehand.