Special birthday gift

Up first and cooking porridge before everyone else emerged. Another sunny day with a breeze picking up and blowing away the remaining clouds. We walked into L'Escala town centre for an al fresco breakfast in John and Veronica's favourite Saturday excursion pasteleria, where we had coffee and crispy fresh baked on the premeses bread rolls, mine with tuna, Clare's with goat cheese salad, John's with cheese, while Veronica had a crepe with ham. Several passers by stopped to say hello and chat with her. She's well known here due to her teaching and other social involvements. It was lovely to listen to the conversations whether in Catalan or Spanish. 

We walked around several streets, visited in Rebecca in the shop she works in. I took photos of the main square and 17th century parish church of St Peter built in the Valencian gothic style of 500 years previously. Then Veronica took me to a bookshop to buy me an 80th birthday present - a novel of Gabriel Garcia Marquez 'Love in a time of cholera'. I had a nice chat with a young bookseller, mostly in Spanish. Then we walked back to the house for a late lunch of merluza steaks, sweet potato and french beans washed down with Catalan wine from the Montsant area outside Tarragona.

We spent the afternoon talking at the table about our past lives' origins and influences, skipping the siesta with the intention of getting to be much earlier, as we have to be up at six for the return trip to Barcelona airport, to be certain of being there by nine. Steve, Veronica's brother is a taxi driver, and advised us to err on the side of caution and allow an extra hour for the journey. It will mean a much longer wait after we've gone through security checks, but better safe than sorry.

Then Clare and I walked the same route past the old mill and farm buildings with towers of refuge, enjoying 25C heat with a cooling breeze. There wasn't as much birdsong as yesterday, perhaps the gusts of wind inhibit them from singing. Lots of swallows and swifts together hunting for food at a low level over the grass land. An enchanting sight. I photographed a small bird chirping on an overhead wire which flew away before I could identify it with the Merlin app.  It had a black and white striped head, and a google enquiry revealed it was a stripe headed sparrow - a visitor from North Africa.

A serious effort on the part of all four of us took us to an early bed time after supper, hoping to be out of the house and on the road before seven if possible.