My turn to make marmalade

Back to being damp and overcast today. I woke up as my phone reminded me to post the link to Morning Prayer for today. After breakfast a walk to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with seven others, and pray for Pope Benedict as his funeral proceeded in Rome. After a cup of coffee and a chat, a quick trip to Tesco to buy some tins of butter beans, then home to prepare lunch, and make ready the next batch of marmalade oranges and lemons for cooking. 

I snoozed in the chair for an hour and then went into town, walking part of the way and taking the bus to hasten my arrival. Another visit to John Lewis' to check out a potential sale bargain travel camera, but on inspection I realised it didn't have quite the specifications I need to replace my damaged HX90. Ah well, keep on looking I suppose.

As I was walking up Westgate Street on my way to the bus stop outside the Holiday Inn, I noticed dozens of taxis parked along the other side of the road. I wondered what exodus after a big event they were waiting for. Then one by one they began to sound their horns. Other taxis went past in procession, also honking their horns and I noticed that many were flying a Unite Trade Union pennant from a window. The penny dropped. It was a protest action. There was a similar one held a month ago. The concern being voiced seems to be about taxi licensing fee reductions for electric car owners, an incentive to owners to upgrade their vehicles. Well intended, but many self employed taxi owners cannot afford to buy a new vehicle and end up being unable to continue earning a living this way, as their running costs are higher. Greening the economy isn't always as simple as we'd wish it to be.

After supper, I extracted all the pips from the cooked oranges and lemons, chopped them all up, added the required amount of water and an amount of sugar less that the recipe requires, so that the jam wouldn't be too sweet to taste, and boiled the lot for over two hours to reduce the mixture to a right consistency. I had to keep an eye on it throughout, so I sat at the kitchen table and watched the first two episodes of another series of 'Madam Blanc Mysteries' on Channel five, rather lightweight sometimes comic amateur sleuthing stories set in the ex-pat community in Provence. Well, it helped to pass the time. Check and stir every time the ads come up. Another eight jars of marmalade produced!

State of Alarm - Day sixteen

After a short spell of rain this morning the sun appeared, and the breeze blowing the clouds away was noticeably warmer than at any time since I've been here - a breath of spring at last. I was glad to capture a couple of shots of an almost white butterfly feeding on white flower similar to a big Michaelmas Daisy.

As I'm almost out of home made bitter orange marmalade, with no chance of acquiring any, and most reluctant to settle for the bland shop bought kind, I resolved to make some lemon marmalade with fruit from the tree outside the front door. Sarah sent me the recipe, a useful reminder of scale and proportion of quantities, then I collected five smallish lemons from the tree, and realised there was no kitchen weighing scales to be found. 

I improvised a balance using a pack of three small tins of tuna, which I think was just about the same weight as the lemons, just 350 grams. There was a kilo of white sugar in the cupboard, and I used roughly the same weight of sugar, not being all that keen on really sweet marmalade anyway. It probably wouldn't keep as long as a standard batch, but then it wouldn't last as long either. 

While I was doing my daily circuit walk after lunch, Clare called. We remembered making  marmalade with ignored  lemons dropping off the neighbour's tree during a locum spell in Nerja. I ad libbed a recipe for one batch, and Clare cooked some properly by the book! Then we both went into our respective kitchens to cook. Clare was baking biscuits, and I cut up and cooked the lemons while we chatted. It was most enjoyable, and free of the usual pressures and conflicts which arise if two people with different cooking styles are occupying the same work space. As well as praying on line together, it occurred to me that people may want to try cooking at the same time and chatting on-line as they do so. 

My marmalade trial was quite encouraging but yielded just one full standard jam jar and a third of a second smaller jar - call it proof of concept. I can scale up and make more another time.

This evening, with my exercise and cooking done, I thought I'd join the evening's prayer vigil on Zoom. Just as I was about to start the app, the house phone rang. Earlier, a local church member had rung on the landline so I thought I'd better answer it just in case. It was my 91 year old sister calling to check me out from Weston super Mare, where she lives, housebound on her own, unable to be taken out anywhere at the moment, relying on home deliveries of food ordered on-line by daughter Nicky from a hundred miles away. It was lovely to hear from her. We last spoke on her birthday, the day I arrived in Ibiza. That was a lovely surprise. Try again to join the vigil tomorrow.

Time to start work on preparing next Sunday now, and Holy Week beyond that. My first month away from home has slipped by very quickly.

Cofradia fiesta

I was surprised to hear from my sister June this morning that a large sized  envelope of art post cards from the Museo de Revello de Toro, sent on Wednesday, had arrived already. As it happens, there's a smaller envelope of cards from yesterday's visit the Museo Jorge Rando, so I'll send it to her today. The barrio post office is only a couple of hundred metres across the road from the apartment. This is such a convenient place to live. It'll be interesting to see if the second letter takes that much longer over a weekend.

This afternoon, there was a choir rehearsal for an anthem to be sung at the Ascension Day service, at which Bishop David will confirm eight new members. Before and after, there were other jobs to be done, preparing for a 'Book and Marmalade Sale' with outside tables after church tomorrow. An essential income generator for ex-pat congregations, which I recall from Geneva days, is a regular second hand book bookstall, plus home made marmalade, cooked with bitter Seville oranges to UK recipe standards.

It may sound daft, but even the best, most expensive shop bought comestible doesn't come anywhere near the British home cooked product, beloved of ex-pats. In Spain, the value added element in Spain is the range of marmalades (not to mention chutneys and pickles) cooked from whatever citrous fruit, or blend is available to the cook, from their own finca or that of a neighbour or friend, who often cannot be bothered to benefit from this natural abundance. I'm working my way through my third jar of home made marmalade since my arrival.

To prepare for the set up of Book and Marmalade stalls outside the church, I needed to move the car. Eight days since I last used it, and a fortnight after the last battery crisis, once more it wouldn't start. Fortunately Rosella had a set of jump leads in her car. With some difficulty, considering how long it is since I last had to do this, (nobody else present had ever done more than call out the grua on their home start car insurance), we got the car to start, and I left it running, hopefully recharging, while we rehearsed, and on into the evening. Fall-back arrangements were made for me to get to Velez Malaga for the service there, just in case it fails tomorrow. This way I can sleep without anxiety about deadlines.

The port had no visiting cruise ships, when I made my evening paseo. The sun was setting when I went up the seventy odd steps and through the tunnel to the Old Town, wondering which streets to wander through. It's my exercise route, good for strengthening the knees, more interesting than any gym apparatus, as it has views, flowers, people being normal, not straining themselves for health. I love the views from above of town and port.

As I descended the slope to Calle Victoria the other side of the pedestrian tunnel, I heard open air party noises emanating from Calle Alcazabilla again. Different music. More lightweight Spanish pop disco stuff. In the vicinity of the casa cofradia de Estudiantes, opposite the entrance to the Alcazaba, there was a large crowd, of all ages, not just students.

It was a different set up from the previous couple of fiesta days in Calle Alcazabilla. Hundreds of people crammed together, talking, dancing, threading their ways through the crowd carrying drinks to a place at one of the round tables laid out on the patio before the opened doors of the casa cofradia. The tronas used for the procession of Christ's burial and of Our Lady of Sorrows were revealed, and the party flowed around them. Sacred and secular aren't quarantined here. It's quite natural. Something I love.

The atmosphere was relaxed and convivial. Passing through the crowd took time and patience, as so many were evidently comfortable and safe about being crammed into a limited space with close, but always respectful, physical contact. I had this experience first in Semana Santa spectator crowds. It's in stark contrast to being in any crowd back home, where I always feel nervous. It's part of what makes Spain special to me. No shortage of individuality, but also no shortage of togetherness.

In two more weeks, my face will be set for home, and an entirely different set of familiar urban and domestic experiences. How, I wonder, will I have changed when I encounter them?