Noche de San Juan on the move

Voting day in the UK's EU referendum, but not a concern for us as we voted postally before we left. We've heard of people here having problems with getting their postal votes mailed back to the UK, because some Spanish post office workers do not recognise or know about the international Freepost convention and signage, as it's in English and French, not in their official postal language. I don't know how true or widespread this is, but its a complication no voter wants.

I had a meeting at the Balcon Hotel with a couple whose wedding I'm due to bless next Wednesday in Frigiliana. Then, after lunch I drove Clare to Malaga airport for her flight back to Cardiff. There were huge queues at the baggage check-in. Not just because of summer holidaymakers, however. There are several Vueling outbound flights within an hour or so of each other, notably one to Amsterdam. The conjunction happens when these two cohorts of passengers are boarding early morning flights as well, as I recall from previous experience.

I left Clare in the queue and went over to the RENFE station to find out if I could purchase a new Tarjeta Dorada train discount card there. No luck. Purchase of this kind are only possible at Maria Zambrano Station in the city, or Torremolinos, or Fuengirola. Knowing how easily I could achieve this in Fuengirola, I went back to check-in, said goodbye to Clare and drove west, to a town that is still familiar and fresh in my memory, from having spent the best part of eight months there the year before last. Mission accomplished I tried to book at ticket for my long distance journey in eight days time. Not possible except at the main station, or on-line. Ah well, another trip into Malaga, this time by bus in coming days I think.

Rather than go straight back home, I drove on to La Cala de Mijas, and visited Peter and Linda in their lovely Casa Madreselva house. Linda was in the pool, doing her physio exercises, following last years joint replacement op. It was great to meet up with them again and catch up. It's a year since I was last there for their joint 145th birthday celebration.

I got home in time for the start of the referendum count, but then at half past eleven headed down to Burriana beach for the Noche de San Juan festivities, there being nothing to glue me to the telly until the results began to flow. It'll be a long night for all the pundits and politicos.

The mystery of Alhaurin's tower

I left the house early to return to the Post Office with my little parcel. When the counter clerk read the registration form she asked if the phone parcel contained a battery, which I said it did. Then she told me it was unacceptable. The explanation was unintelligible regardless of whether it was in English or Spanish. The language difficulty was conceptual. It was about how she interpreted the regulation. Did it specify 'Battery in the parcel' or 'Battery inserted in phone'? I had been advised to pack phone and battery separately and had done this. I bought another jiffy bag, and opened the parcel, showed the clerk that it was separately packed, and got the standard clerical frown until I separated the battery and re-packed phone, adaptor and leads. This time I got a smile for my nine euros The battery will have to travel separately, although I'm not sure how yet.

Half a job done, I drove up to Coin to celebrate the Eucharist there for the last time, drink coffee after and say my farewells. Then, before I drove back down the hill to Fuengirola, I drove as far as Puerto de Pescadores, the top of the pass where the road from below divides to go to Coin or Alhuarin, in order to climb the forty five metre hill and visit el Torre, which gives the nearby village its full name, Alhaurin de la Torre. This structure, prominently visible on the horizon from many places around this area, is a twentieth century water tower which has been disguised with decorative stone cladding that make sit look like a tall ancient fortified grand mansion. It's a grand romantic folly and it looks good in the landscape.

It wasn't clear which path would take me quickest to the tower, so I explored before ascending. It was an unusually warm day for mid October, but fresh, cool and fragrant under the trees, with lots of   flowering rosemary and thyme bushes on the hillside. The views were spectacular in all directions. I reached the tower, expecting it to be inaccessible, and was surprised to find a huge iron portal wide open. I entered, and found that I was able to climb right up inside the tower two thirds of the way up to a level with open views out across the countryside. I could have climbed further but the condition of the building - open stairs without guard rails, and much evidence of neglect and casual vandlaism dictated caution, to I didn't go as far up as possible.

If this edifice had been well maintained, it would have made a fascinating tourist attraction, but the view from high up indicaed this was part of a stalled project. Roads had been made throughout the surrounding countryside, but few buildings or residences had been constructed to fit in with them. There was a metalled road up to a car park below the tower, and a large concrete plinth on which to build  restaurant or a visitor center. The adornment of the tower itself was incomplete, or had been allowed to deteriorate to the point where it looked incomplete. I know nothing more about this failed project, whether it was a victim of recession in this century or the last. Apart from a good stiff climb, it gave me lots to think about.

You'll find photos I took here.
   

Unusual visitor

After the Wednesday morning Eucharist and coffee morning, I was sitting in the church office, and a man came in to see me, enquiring about marriage services in Spanish chaplaincies. He spoke good English and was well versed in understanding the history and origins of Christian marriage liturgy. It was a subject he had researched, and it turned out that he'd done a ministerial training course at a reformed seminary in Spain. Now he was enquiring about  how he could legally and legitimately marry his fiancee, a non-EU citizen, and bring her into the country - a difficult undertaking for an honest man.

He was on leave from his work as an educational outreach worker in the Granada gitano community, persuading kids to turn up regularly for school and complete their basic education. Illiteracy and innumeracy are high among gypsies due to their fundamental distrust of state efforts to integrate them into society through the educational system. As an evangelical Christian missionary he was involved in gitano church planting, a social and spiritual enterprise which has met with considerable success in Southern Europe over several decades. When we'd finished an interesting conversation lasting more than an hour, I wished that I had more time in Andalusia to go and visit him in Granada and discover more about his work. I just had to let the opportunity go, aware of the need to concentrate on handing over to Hywel, my successor as locum chaplain.

Today I needed to get my broken Blackberry into a postal package for sending back to Ashley in Cardiff. I bought a jiffy bag and acquired the necessary form for a registered letter, only to be told at half past one that registered post is accepted only between nine and midday on working days. Ah well you live and learn.

 

Visit to the Bull

One thing I forgot to pack when leaving Cardiff was the charger for my DSLR battery. When Clare got back to Cardiff, she found it and posted it to me. That was a week ago. Meanwhile, last Friday, after the post for the day had gone, I sent a birthday card to Amanda, and yesterday morning she sent me a text message saying it had arrived. Uh-oh? What's happened to my little parcel? How long may it take to arrive? Or, is it lost? 

Each day since Thursday last, apart from Sunday, I've made sure that I'm here in the morning to receive a delivery, knowing that the little parcel will be just too thick to pass through the letter box opening in the garden door. So far, nothing, and I've no idea how long it might actually take to convey a little package from Cardiff to Fuengirola, given that a little package is not a letter. 

The way the postal service works in any country, let alone between countries is a mystery, and it's admirable that it works at all, given the variety of regulations governing the terms and conditions for the delivery of letters and packages in different countries. But, for a newcomer like me, it's a matter of uncertainty combined with inexperience. So I stay in and wait, not knowing what else to do.

Yesterday, I didn't go out all day. This afternoon, I willed myself to go out for an afternoon paseo, as it had cooled pleasantly by a few degrees. I walked East towards Torreblanca, not on the promenade, but on a road which took me up into the urbanizacions surrounding a 70 metre high promontory that overlooks the coastal plan.

A rare instance of unmanaged wild area in the conurbation, hosts an old maritime watch tower and one of ninety examples nationwide of the iconic 1950's bull advertisement logo for Osborne's Sherry Brandy. It has become a popular symbol in Spain, appearing on flags and tee shirts, quite divorced from its origin in drinks marketing.

When faced with removal under revised planning regulations, some bull advertisements were locally adopted, retained by popular acclaim as an unofficial Spanish identity symbol. The present bull of Torreblanca appears to be the third on this site, to judge by the discarded and rusting remains of foundations at previous locations on the hilltop.

When I arrived, half a dozen teenagers speaking a Scandinavian language were gathered around the bull, taking photos and climbing, where they could, girls posing for photos swinging from the bull's cojones, which I observed has been graffiti'd over several times, making them less visible that the usual matt back which makes for such a distinctive distant profile. Scope for philosophization without limit here, which I shall renounce. The views from up there across the sea plain and along the coast in both directions are well worth the climb. Surprising really that it's not considered worthy of a few tourism signs to direct visitors there.