Nerja supermarket tour

While it was still dark, I heard the main door click as Jorje entered quietly and went to work on the pool at the bottom of the garden, adding purification tablets, checking the water pump. I didn't hear him leave as I slipped away into sleep again. I woke up just before sunrise and took a photo of the valley as the sun was about to rise out of sight above the horizon. From where the sun did appear above the side of the valley a while later, I learned that the valley is oriented roughly east south east. A strong wind caused the windows to moan in their frame

After listening to 'Thought for the Day' I got up and made porridge for breakfast as usual. Jorje returned to switch off the pump and fish stray vegetation out of the pool. He's happy to talk with me in Spanish, and said he used to chat in Spanish with Fr Nigel the previous chaplain and his Uruguayan wife Pilar. He is Argentinian, easier to understand than a native Andalusian! Until lunchtime, I prepared and recorded next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection, then added chorizo to the second instalment of the dish I cooked yesterday.

I then walked down to the main road and followed the senda litoral in the Torrox direction as far as the Torre de Calaceite. My body started to remind me how far I walked yesterday so I turned and retraced my steps back to the house to upload photos and have a cup of tea. The house number plate fashioned from decorative tiles in a fancy little wrought iron frame was lying on the ground unbroken, blown off the wall by the pestering wind. Fixing it back on wasn't easy, as I couldn't find any tools in the house. An umbrella with a metal tip came to the rescue, giving me a blunt hard instrument with which to push together the soft metal loops used to mount the plate on the wall. It needs another mounting screw to prevent the wind from prising it loose.

A few things I didn't buy yesterday I still needed, so I drove to Nerja intending to go to Mercadona, but I approached it the wrong way for accessing the car park. Instead I drove right through to the eastern outskirts of the town where there's a second Mercadona, easier to locate at the side of a main road, even if the car park entrance is a little awkward. And there's a Carrefour nearby on the opposite side of the road. 

I settled for the Carrefour as I remembered it was easier to entre and exit for returning to Torrox. I found everything on my list with the exception of a few small paring knives for the kitchen. On the journey back I went to the Aldi store which is opposite Lidl on the same site, but neither store sells cutlery, but I did buy a couple of 8 litre bottles of water. The mains water is supplied by an artesian well. It's clean and safe to drink, but the taste when it comes to cooking or making tea is a different matter.

It's interesting to see the Aldi store opposite Lidl's was probably constructed more recently than Lidl, as it has an open underground car park without a gate entry system to control the length of one's stay in the car park. A smaller site has been optimised by this design approach. It was almost empty, whereas Lidl's surface car park with gate entry system is pretty full most of the time. This is free to use, but your ticket has to be validated for exit by the checkout operator. None of this at Aldi's. Access is easy once you know how, but not as visible to find as a surface car park. 

After supper I tried getting the telly to work. It was rigged up to receive UK cable TV. All the devices attached to it seem to work but there's no external signal input. Something's amiss I think. Unless there's some aspect of this assemblage I don't understand at all. I followed a line of cable from the system to the balcony, but reached a dead end. If there was once a satellite dish or aerial at the end of the line, there isn't now. I'm not bothered about this. I have my Spanish novel to read for entertainment before it's time for bed.

Productive Monday

I woke up an hour before dawn with moonlight streaming in through the window, as the moon was just above the horizon. It was an enchanting sight, which I don't recalled experiencing before. Then I started having ideas for next Sunday's sermon, and after breakfast got busy and wrote a first draft. Then I drove to Lidl's on the outskirts of St Antoni for some food shopping. It was very busy and I had to queue for ages to pay and leave.

After lunch I worked on preparations for tomorrow evening's Bible Study here at Can Bagot. I have no idea how many will come. At lunch yesterday I picked up the idea that outreach was a subject which needs exploring. The Acts of the Apostles has been suggested for study. There's far too much in it to over in half a dozen sessions, so the challenge will be to select suitable passages that have something to say, and resist other distractions.

I took a back road down to Cala des Torrents to find a shop where I could get the deodorant, which I forgot to buy this morning, but I couldn't find a single shop open. The place seems to be a ghost town out of season. Much of the evening was spent on the phone to Owain and to Clare. At home we have a leak upstairs caused by a faulty bath tap, that now needs replacing. Clare can cope with that, but I do feel a bit guilty about not being there with her because of this.

   

Birthday girl

This morning I felt able to sit comfortably enough to get the 61 bus to Splott to collect the Polo from the garage and drive it back again. It was a pleasure to get out and do this. The window winder and door locking fault seemed something of a mystery to the mechanic who worked on it. They had a spare driver-side winder mechanism from a comparable scrap car, and it worked a treat, activating the central locking system perfectly, instead of acting as it it was a passenger side winder and lock mechanism. Perhaps at some time or another it had been swapped over, but finally broken. Anyway, it's been fixed now, and very kindly at no cost to us.

After stopping at Lidl's to stock up on a few items I missed out on earlier in the week, I went home and cooked a stir fry for lunch. John our plumber came by to see what he could do about the short plastic overflow pipe under the sink which has cracked as if perished in several places. How this occurred in a confined space where it's subjected to no movement stress and not exposed to sunlight is inexplicable.

I walked to Riverside Surgery for another wound dressing this afternoon, while Clare was out at a physical therapy appointment. Both of us require regular maintenance outings to keep us functional these days.

Sister June is eighty four today. I rang to sing her Happy Birthday and we chatted for ages. I think she's in better shape than the Edwardian building she lives in, long ago converted into flats, showing its age, and suffering from a selection of owners or sub tenants who seem indifferent to problems with the property's condition, or everyday safety and security of its occupants. 

I wish she'd move, but she's determined to stay and complain to the property management company about discharging their contractual obligations, wit well informed and detailed emails. Working on drawing up plans for engineers and architects for much of her career means that she has acquired a fair amount of technical expertise about buildings, expertise she still relishes using, since her mind is as sharp as ever. 

Thankfully, she can still get out and walk to the shops, although she's not quite as fit and spritely as she'd like to be since having replacement knees. Wandsworth Common where she lives, is a fairly safe area, but life is made precarious for elderly pedestrians by the presence of cycle riders with whom they are obliged to share the sometimes narrow and uneven pavements. It'll be a long while before public realm areas are reshaped by the local Council to accommodate safely both cyclists and walkers. Meanwhile it's elderly and vulnerable people who have to suffer, and cyclists who get the media attention.

Evening Taffside walk home

I walked to St Luke's to celebrate Mass with four people this morning. Fr Jesse Smith attended, on his way to meet the Archdeacon. It's ages since we last met. It's great to see him looking fit and well after a challenging bout of serious illness several years ago. At that time I did some locum duties in his Parish, though we got to know each other when he was Team Vicar in Central Cardiff Parish 16 years ago. He left us for a Tyneside parish. I remember going up there for his induction, a six hour journey. I was delighted that after a spell over the border he returned to the Parish where he's been incumbent now for ten years.

I had an email request to take a funeral a week Thursday. I won't be able to meet with the family members until next Monday to discuss the service, but that gives me plenty of time to prepare. 

This evening we went to choir practice, and numbers attending were thin enough to conclude that it's now time to stop rehearsals for the summer. Instead of learning new pieces we did some voice exercise work, which to my mind is a good thing. Mine gets well worked in the course of leading services but doesn't really get stretched by new demands. I have a little idea now of what I need to be doing to remedy this. I've lost a few bottom notes, but it seems that it's never too late to recover them, if I make the effort.

We went to choir by bus, but there were no buses timetabled for eight thirty when we were ready to set off for home, and nobody going in our direction to give us a lift, so we walked back 5.3km along the Taff trail, after buying a picnic supper in the swish new Llandaff North Lidl store. It was a very pleasant summer evening walk, marred only by discarded cans and bottles. I couple of items I could not pass by, I carried 400m to the nearest bin. Sometimes the distance between bins is greater. More are needed to cope with the problem caused by the couldn't care less members of our throwaway society. More bins require more maintenance staff, and city budgets have experienced terrible cut backs. 

Last week I completed a local council on-line survey to give feedback on its public cleansing services, as I expressed an interest in the issue many moons ago. In this era of enforced austerity in public spending, I believe it's necessary to make it easier for volunteers to work on keeping litter under control, by making collection resources available to them - temporary bins, bags, gloves, tongs etc. Is this too hard to consider, I wonder?

  

Tales of wine

Another drive to Albox-Aljambra this morning to celebrate the Eucharist in honour of Saints Simon and Jude. There was a excellent shared lunch afterwards in church, and an opportunity to talk with people I'd not spoken with before. I had a small glass of an interesting Alto Almanzora Valley wine, named Este from a vineyard west of Albox. The label said it was a blend of 47% Monastrell, 23% Tempranillo, 12% Syrah, 6% Garnacha, 6% Merlot, and 6% Cabernet Sauvignon. Remarkable.

Using six varieties of grape is fairly unusual these days. One or two is more normal, although I've come across Valencian wines which use more. Some regions still have estates where traditional wine making recipes have persisted, or been revived and refined with modern brewing technologies. Using whatever kind of grapes can be grown rather than being so selective, in fermenting is the ancient way of doing it. With mixed results though, not to everyone's taste.

After the meal and clearing up, Lay Reader Duncan took me a cafe in Albox, much frequented by English speaking people, to meet a couple whose baby I'll be Christening at Aljambra in a fortnight's time. Their little eight week old daughter was born with a full head of chestnut coloured hair, and it hasn't fallen out yet. It's lovely to behold.

I stopped at Lidl's in Garrucha on the way back for some food shopping. In the wine aisle I overheard this remark from a Spanish couple: "Si ese vino es de Catalunya, no debemos comprarlo." Mojácar is about five hours drive from the Catalan border, but it seems people all over Spain are unhappy about the events unfolding there. The company has over 500 stores in Spain but seems to be run from Barcelona. It'll be interesting to see what economic impact separatism has on this significant trader in the Euro-supermarket field.

    

Another summer Saturday

 A day to complete sermon preparation and get myself ready for tomorrow's Christening at Villars. Also a day to go to Lidl's in Villeneuve for some weekend food shopping, while Clare went into Montreux for some retail therapy. Heavens, it was crowded in Lidl's, with families stocking up for trips to a favourite lakeside or mountain picnic places. The queues were long and slow because of the volume of of purchased being made. There's no fast track system for people with less than ten items to check out here. Migros and COOP, both have hi-tech scanning devices you can take around with your shopping trolley, and make fast track payments at a special electronic till. I must take time to try the system one of these days.

After lunch, we walked to the little beach by Chateau de Chillon, so that Clare could swim. It was crowded with families and groups of teenagers recovering from their first week back at school. Due to the amount of picnickers, the clear grassy areas above the beach were periodically invaded by a score of sparrows, a few related families I suspect, whose home is in bushes nearby. It was a lovely sight, as they were very tame, used to foraging for and fighting over discarded morsels of crisps. I daren't imagine what impact crisps have on their natural diet. Yet, there seem to be plenty of them.

Tonight, another episode of Inspector Montalbano, all about the different Mafia clans' efforts to run the Sicilian construction industry together, entirely in their own interests. It was complex story of criminal ingenuity, but the outcome was, as ever, that there's no honour among thieves, and the trail of victims, known and unknown, is everlastingly long.

  

Home alone weekend

This morning, it was Clare's turn to travel to Kenilworth by train to look after Rhiannon over another busy working weekend for Kath and Anto. I drove her to the station for a train, just before lunch, and then spent the afternoon doing nothing much of consequence apart from updating to the latest version of Libre Office on various machines. 

I continue to be impressed with the incremental improvements which appear. It's an outstanding project in Open Source Software development, a real flagship for free collaboration in producing apps that address many key user needs. Since I finished working for CBS RadioNet, I no longer need to use MS Word to ensure my files are seamlessly compatible with office use, I don't need to use anything other than Libre Office, which is installed on all the PCs I have in use, with MS Office now kept in reserve for emergencies on my mothballed former study workstation.

At tea-time, I drove over to Roath for a bereavement visit in relation to a funeral next week. Yesterday I was asked to book a date for another funeral, details to follow. That'll be my sixth in the past four weeks, and I know Fr Phelim, our parish priast has done even more. Other parish clergy are also reporting larger numbers of funerals than is usual for this time of year. It's not extreme weather, nor a reported 'flu epidemic, although there has been a pernicious and long drawn out virus which has hit many people with chesty catarrh this year. I thought I'd escaped it, but seem to have had a milder version of the same over the past two weeks. Heaven help anyone with a weak immune system!

Most worrying, to my mind is the impact this has on work load for the diminished number of working clergy that get called upon to do this. I wonder who is keeping an eye on this at a diocesan level, and taking into account the additional stresses and strains this imposes on clergy.

By the time I was finished my visit, traffic was heavy in all directions, so I drove back across Roath and into Cathays, so I could do some weekend shopping at Lidl's near where we used to live. Since I was last there, some months ago, It's undergone an internal makeover I think, although not expanded. It can't get any bigger on this site. Now, two ranks of self service tills replace a couple of manned checkouts, as in other stores around the city. I'd rather queue and speak to a human at checkout, so I avoid these. Nevertheless, self service tills shoten the queues as they get well used by the young - and this area is still a student ghetto, so the store is always busy with youngsters from around the world.

When I have to cook for myself, I still can't cook just enough for one meal at a time, so I ended up after supper with another meal ready for tomorrow. But what shall I do with tomorrow on my own, I wonder?

  

The mystery of change

I was on duty in Catherine's again this chilly morning celebrating the eight o'clock Eucharist with five others, and then after breakfast made my way to St German's via Lidl's in East Tyndal Street, so that I didn't have to call in there later on my way home. Thirty of us celebrated St Agnes Day in style, and it gave me an opportunity to recall the work of the parish mission outreach centres set up right across the southern arc of Cardiff Bay during its period of rapid population growth and industrial expansion in the nineteenth century. 

Contemporary parishes have far fewer resources or wealthy patrons nowadays, to undertake so many ambitious community projects, more than a dozen in new areas of artisan dwellings. Today churches may still take the right kind of initiative, focusing on current areas of need and social vulnerability, but in partnership with local government and big voluntary agencies more often than not. It's a much more difficult task to bring to fruit. It's a great achievement that St German's parish hall can function as an elderly persons' day centre during the week, offering different services to people in the locality and further afield. This represents decades of imaginative hard work.

After the Mass there was a delicious three course festive lunch attended by thirty people in the parish hall, which I stayed for, a real church family affair. I was delighted Father Roy came along and joined us, as it gave us an opportunity to catch up on the news. He's still very much part of the church family here despite being retired nearly five years.

Someone asked me over lunch if I'd been at the Cathedral yesterday for Jo Penberthy's consecration as Bishop for St David's diocese. I had to admit that I knew it was going to happen, but didn't know when, until I saw photos on Facebook yesterday afternoon. All too often these days, momentous events in the life of the church flow past without me noticing. There's not much a retired cleric can contribute, without any voting franchise, power or responsibility, apart from blessing and approving good things when they happen. 

I suppose I might notice if anything seriously retrograde happened in the affairs of the church. There are always going to be minor set-backs. I remain stubbornly convinced that the evolution of the church in faithful response to the changing environment in each succeeding era will continue at its own pace, the pace the Holy Spirit sets. In my lifetime, a paradigm shift took place in relation to the participation of women in ordained ministry. I wonder if we're in the throes of turmoil leading up to another paradigm shift and change of consensus about the nature of the church, ministry and authority? One which can take us in new directions in seeking to realise the reign of God over humankind.  

There'll always be some believers who sincerely believe they have the whole truth and nothing but the truth before God. They'll cling to it and fight for it naturally, and risk becoming prisoners to their own sense of truth. I believe in the possibility of absolute truth, that all may get glimpses of it from time to time. I also believe the totality of truth is veiled from us, utterly mysterious, only as knowable as God permits us to be conscious of it. I believe we're explorers on a journey in which reality and truth keep on being revealed only as much as we're capable of receiving and using to grow in relation to God. 

All this, I believe, because of what God did for us through Jesus and the gift of the Spirit. We question what we know and trust of divine revelation, we question ourselves as the questioners too. It's how we get ourselves beyond illusion to the place of unknowing where the mystery of being and God awaits us.

    

Weekend wildlife

Apart from sermon preparation, a quiet uneventful Saturday gave us an opportunity to take a good long walk together around Bute Park, and then some catch-up telly watching. Today started with a walk to St John's to celebrate the eight o'clock Eucharist with half a dozen faithful, and then after breakfast, the drive to St German's to celebrate the eleven o'clock Mass. A couple arrived before we started to ask about having their second child baptised, like the first, in St German's next month. They stayed on for most of the service, letting their first-born enjoy the company of a couple of other tinies, grandchildren of a couple of our regulars, in the children's corner. It's not easy to organise yourself around church attendance when you have two pre-school age children. I hope they'll feel comfortable about coming and joining us again, apart from the next Christening.

After this, I called at the newly rebuilt Lidl store on East Tyndall Street to get a few items we needed. I was there last year, just before it closed for rebuilding, following the acquisition of a plot of land next door, for an extended car park. The new building is a third bigger than the original, and has an in-store bakery, like the ones in Europe. It's well stocked, and on a Sunday lunchtime, the enlarged car park was almost full. It's an expertly planned and realised commercial project serving the inner city district of Newtown undergoing rapid redevelopment with office blocks on industrial wasteland.

It was almost two o'clock by the time I reached home, as outgoing traffic on Cathedral Road was unusually heavy for a Sunday. Clare had already eaten, and was preparing to go to her monthly study group meeting in Bristol, so I had a quiet time on my own. I watched a repeat of a remarkable BBC nature documentary called 'Spy in the Wild' in which robot look-alikes of wild animals equipped with cameras provide extraordinary close up video footage of a variety of different animals. It's the first of five in a series. Marvellous unmissable watching.

I felt I needed a respite from routine exercise today, as recently I've had what I've come to recognise as tell tale signs of kidney stones acting up. No pain, but just feeling less sharp and clear than usual, with a muzzy head, rather than a headache. Today, my head was clear, but the distinct niggling pain in my left kidney told me the stone is on the move again. It's happened before and will happen again before it gives me big trouble.

   

Business as usual, and a catch-up treat

Back to St German's this morning to celebrate the 'Class Mass' with two dozen children and teachers from Tredegarville School in addition to the regular congregation of ten. I told them the story of St Martin of Tour, and had them singing songs that I'd used with them before. It was such a pleasure to be back with them again after time away.

I couldn't stop and chat for too long afterwards, as I needed to go home and pick up Clare to drive to Marion's house in Barry for the monthly Ignatian prayer group. Then I had to leave early before lunch and table talk finished, to drive to the School of Optometry in Cathays to collect another pair of reading glasses and consult with the optician about the problem of an experience I call 'dappled vision' that comes and goes, in certain lighting conditions. 

It's probably some kind of eye strain. It's become far less frequent since I started wearing proper specs with a special anti-glare reflective coating, but I felt it was worth checking out. Thankfully, there's been no change in my eyes since my first test. I've been given a list of possible medical conditions to discuss with my GP, but I'll wait to see if there's further recurrence. I've had occasional migraine auras in certain qualities of bright light for 25 years and it's bright light, from a computer screen or outdoors which triggers the bouts of 'dappled vision', so it could be a related low level effect - eyes struggling to cope, due to ageing with lenses clouding, not enough to obscure vision, but just enough to play tricks with the light at certain angles. Like a slightly dirty car windscreen. 

After a quick visit to Lidl's next door to the School of Optometry, I headed for home and cooked supper for us. Then at last, an opportunity to catch up on a high regarded Welsh crime drama series 'Gwyll' or 'Hinterland' in English. I noticed Series 3 was going to launch in October, but S4C's catch up stream wasn't accessible in Spain. I started watching on my tablet, and was surprised to discover it was entirely in Welsh. 

I watched Series 1 and 2 on BBC4 in a bilingual version with subtitles. This portrays lead character DCI Matthias as an English only speaker, with his colleague Mared (her of the famous signature red anorak with the furry collar) as the bi-lingual detective. He's clearly a Welshman, but not being a Welsh speaker suggests he's an outsider to the region, and one learns early on that he has been working with the Met in London. So, the Welsh only version portrays him as less of an outsider. Interesting! I shall watch again on BBC4 when it comes out, curious as to whether this entails straightforward dubbing of sound, or actual re-shooting of scenes. The photography is outstandingly good, as is the acting.

The great blessing of S4C catch up is that it skips the advertising, saving 10-15 minutes of boredom, so we binge watched three episodes in three hours fifteen, the length of one big movie. Well, a bit longer, as I wondered if I was getting the whole plot right with my understanding of spoken Welsh being a lot poorer than my Spanish, plus I couldn't switch on the subtitles, so I switched on telly with our YouView didgy box, felt my way to the correct programme location, switched on the subtitles, and pressed Go. 

Clare came and joined me this time. I gave her my plot summary, surprised to have confirmation from the replay of opening minutes that I had correctly understood what I'd heard and seen. Amazing! Mind you, isetting the murder scene in a chapel helped, as much of my latent Welsh vocabulary relates to church and religion. I can well understand how this crime series has gained audiences world-wide. It's up there with the very best of the euro-crimmies, many of which use several languages, as in real life.

  

A funeral to prepare for

Just after a late breakfast, I received a phone call from an Englishman working as a funeral director to ask if I'd take a service in the village Church at Antas, about half an hour's drive inland from the coast. He gave me the widow's contact details, and those of the Parish Priest, who said he'd like me to get in touch. I then phone made a midday meeting arrangement to prepare for the service in a cafe on a trading estate close to the A7 autovia exit nearest to Mojacar, which is actually within the boundaries of Antas, although separated from it by the road.

I arrived just at the same time the widow and her widowed friend, and noticed how members of the staff in the cafe greeted her with of sympathy, clearly she and her husband were regular customers here. We talked for a long while and I gleaned enough information to write a eulogy, as family and friends didn't wish to. The deceased was an aero engineer, what had worked on building Concorde at Filton in Bristol, something recalled understandably with great pride. 

A selection of popular music had been chosen to play during the service. No hymns, and very few prayers I was admonished, as the widow claimed not to be a believer, although her husband had still possessed respect for the faith of his boyhood, if not actual practice. As the shock of his death, unexpected due to complications after an operation was still raw, I felt it wiser not to argue, but later, it meant that I'd need to give careful attention to liturgical content with this in mind, as to crafting the eulogy. The issue is not leaving God out as much as bringing God's presence into focus in a respectful way - inviting those who can to pray, rather than just saying prayers on everyone's behalf. Thankfully there's plenty of precedent for that in Christian tradition, always having to cater for diversity in the participants at an occasional office of the Church..

On the way back to the apartment I did my main weekly shopping trip to Lidl's in Garrucha, but after lunch I realised that I'd forgotten milk and margarine yet again, so walked into Mojacar to buy some, and get much needed exercise. In the evening I called Fr Enrique, the Parish Priest of Antas, with my well rehearsed speech in Spanish, but got no reply. Half an hour later, however, he rang back, and after a successful start in Spanish, he switched to English, keen to practice his foreign language as I was. I'm looking forward to meeting up on Wednesday for a chat before the service.

I went down to the beach again in search of pictures of the moon rising out of the sea, but there was thin cloud down to the horizon, and little to be seen, let alone photographed. Ah well, another night maybe.

  

Data annoyance again

A nice slow start to the day, with a load of washing done and hung out to dry on the balcony after breakfast. Unfortunately a this time of year, the balcony is in shade all day, so drying things in the open air takes that much longer. It also explains why the apartment is equipped with a tumble drier, which I wouldn't use on principle. I have enough changes of clothes not to get that desperate.

After lunch I drove out to Pam and Alwyn's place, twenty minutes drive from Mojacar, up in the countryside near the autovia, for a meeting of worship team members, led by Fr Alan. Service planning from now until New Year was the business. It's is a necessity given the variation in availability on the part of lay worship leaders, of whom there are four, plus Fr Alan and whoever is the locum Chaplain. 

I had just another five weeks of assignments to take note of, but working out the schedule for others required give and take. All are volunteers fitting in their offering of service to the church with domestic routine, holidays and family commitments that are not local. The way they plan together is impressive. In addition, the meeting was finished. We parted company in just over an hour.

On my way back, I went to Lidl's in Garrucha to get a few things I'd missed on Saturday, and ran into a couple of church members out shopping. It's so nice to see familiar faces in a place that is generally such an anonymous environment.

On my return, I checked the spreadsheet I'd made for my duty assignments, using Google Sheets on my table. Modifications made offline at Pam and Alwyn's were visible, despite more than a dozen error messages because the file couldn't sync to the web. When viewed the device, once more attached to the internet, it displayed a dialogue which made no sense to me. On pressing what I thought was the correct response, I found I'd lost changes made at the meeting. I was furious.. All I needed to be asked to avoid losing work was the question: 'Do you want to save the changes you made while off line?'. Because this didn't happen, I had to rely on memory recall to reconstruct my list of duties. I hope what I remembered is correct.

Google will no doubt protest that I'd have been all right if I'd used their Gdocs format rather than  the Docx file format I used. Or not as the case may be. This is not the first time I have lost off-line work, because of Google's vain efforts to re-educate the universe to do things its way, rather than use a simple universal default common text file standard that can be saved and read on any device or operating system, preserving data input. To hell with fancy display formats and sophisticated shareable, re-editable add-ons and their protocols. This is a deep flaw in a system for everyday use that needs to be as simple as the basic needs of its users. Shame on you Google for not making this completely fool proof. Sabotaged by too many clever 'helpful' ideas, as ever.

It's lucky I can still rely on my memory, given that stuff like this can happen when you're out of internet reach. Well, just like the old days really. I'll be back to pen and paper before you know it.

   

Saturday shopping

I got in late last night, then talked until even later to Ashley, who was still in the office in between making another walk around Cardiff city centre's night time economy to check that all's well with CBS radio users. As a result I got up late, did some writing after breakfast, then cooked a chicken and chick pea curry, making use of a couple of chicken legs I came home with from last night's social evening and the remainder of last week's veg purchases. That made a pleasant change. 

Then I drove to Garrucha to do the week's shopping for supplies at the bright shiny new Lidl's, one of the largest I've been in anywhere, either in Spain or Britain. I didn't notice much more of a variety of products on sale, but it seems to be able to accommodate more shoppers. However, mid-afternoon only one till was open and the queue was long. 

Garrucha is my next walking destination. It's a small town with around 8,500 inhabitants, plus holidaymakers. It has an industrial history as a mineral exporting port. Nowadays it is visited only by bulk carriers exporting building plaster, manufactured inland. It has a small fishing fleet, and a leisure marina. There's an 18th century castle to discover and on the road into town from Mojacar what looks like another of those fortified mansions, like one I saw last month outside Benajarafe near Velez Malaga.

It's good to get stocked up, so that if I run out of anything it's easier to walk to the shops and carry back a few items, with no need to use the car. In fact that's exactly what happened next. I realised as soon as I got back that I'd forgotten to buy milk. So, my evening paseo was a brisk 50 minute round trip walk to the Mercadona under an overcast sky containing some dark storm clouds. No sign of rain so far however. The evening is still warm (19C) and fragrant, with tree frogs chirruping not too far away and a few dried up leaves dropping. It's dark now by eight o'clock. The only thing missing to complete the autumnal feel is a whiff of wood smoke in the air.

Heavens, I've been here a week already! Time passes quickly with so many new places to explore.

  

Getting ready to go

The Chaplaincy treasurer John came by yesterday morning to settle up with me, as I'm bound for home, Monday. Rachel and Clare have already placed their orders for Mercadona own brand 85% chocolate, so I must remember to call in and buy some over the weekend, and go to the station and book my ticket on the fast train to Barcelona, which gets me in with plenty of time to spare before check-in starts.

When I started to consider packing, I realised that I've not used half the clothes I brought with me. It's so easy in this hot weather to hand wash clothes from day to day, since they dry so quickly, and only occasionally run a full load in the washing machine. I need to look more critically at what I pack for my autumn trip, aware as I am from previous assignments of how warm and dry it stays until the end of October if not later.

This afternoon, a shopping trip to Lidl, to stock up with enough food to cover the weekend and leave a selection of essentials for the locum who'll succeed me. I appreciated arriving here a month ago to find there was enough in the fridge to tide me over a couple of meals. As I learned when I was a teenager in the Boy Scouts nearly sixty years ago 'Leave the campsite they way you expect to find it.' A Chaplain's residence is  far superior to a campsite, but for locums who come and go, the same rules should apply.
  

More open air musical delight

It's been cooler than usual for mid June, this past few days, and this has made sleeping at night a lot pleasanter. There can be a cooling breeze on occasions during the day also, which makes walking around more congenial as well. After breakfast, we headed out to re-fuel the car and visit Lidl's to do our weekend shopping, before it got too busy or hotter. Then I walked into San Salvador Church for today's wedding blessing at noon. I met the new parish priest Fr Jose-Maria, and had a brief conversation with him over arrangements for the ceremony. He was very helpful. His accent wasn't as strong as his predecessor, so it was easier for me to understand him. A minor morale boosting achievement.

The couple had been together several years and had two small children. Fifteen of their closest family members were there to support them. They'd married civilly in the UK last month, and had been planning a wedding blessing here for a long time, being regular visitors, with an eye on moving here to live and work once the children are through primary school. It was good to see that they'd thought carefully through doing things this way, and didn't want to pretend that they were doing it exactly the way it would be done in the UK. Such a conscious decision on their part made this a refreshing change for me.

After the ceremony, I waited in the square for Clare to arrive for another tapas lunch at Biznaga. A man was busking, singing his own interesting variations of many Beatles and Elton John standards, while accompanying himself with exceptional skill on an electric guitar. No backing track, or drum machine, or reverb pedal, just sheer polished musical artistry, pleasure to listen to, as a sat sipping a beer and eating olives. Clare wanted to eat inside, so grudgingly I moved tables, to place where I couldn't hear nearly so well against the background of meals being served, but it was good while it lasted. Sadly, I never found out who he was. There's such a lot of amazing talent out there, and out here some marvellous open air performance spaces for enjoying music.

In the evening, the only thing worth watching was the last double episode of French crimmie 'La Disparucion' on BBC Four. I guessed the final plot twist beforehand. As so often happens in real life, perpetrator and victim knew each other and were member of the same family. A fight turns into a tragic fate, covered up by lies and deception, leading to more avoidable deaths. 'Oh what a crooked web we weave, if first we practice to deceive.' 

Unhappy meal

This bank holiday Monday morning, I walked into town, as the crowds slowly began to drive in and queue for city centre shopping car parks. I needed to visit the office to retrieve a file which was meant to sync to OneDrive, but once more failed to. Microsoft puts more effort into driving people to rely on cloud based storage without being able to provide necessary total reliability. For years I carried all I needed to work on around with me on a flash drive. I've rather got out of the habit this past year, but the inconsistency of syncing operations on OneDrive, on which we rely so heavily for work, are causing me to re-think. Oddly enough, Google Drive never seems to present any problems, although it's helpful or otherwise insistence of converting everything in and out of Gdrive format for editing and sharing is rather annoying when all you want to do is work with your chosen tools in your own work setting in your own way.

Once in the office, I got drawn into entering data on recent acquisitions into our newest database, and testing a barcode scanning application that I'm hoping will ease the task at little cost. Then before I knw it, Clare was calling, wondering when I'd be back for lunch. Hours slip by very quickly in the fact of a pile of detail to be attended to.

After lunch we drove to Bristol to see Amanda and James. Her new wifi printer has failed to work since the batch of replacement inks purchased with the equipment are not recognised as present by the machine. The inks are genuine enough, but it's as if the sensor meant to recognise them isn't working. It's going to be difficult getting this sorted, as they don't have the means to get to the nearest branch of PC World to sort it out. Frustrating and very disappointing.

As we were approaching the Seven Bridge on the drive home, I suddenly noticed that the car engine was overheating, and stopped underneath the junction with the M49 to see what was wrong. I wasn't yet another leak, but apparently no fluid was passing through the radiator, suggesting either a blockage or a radiator thermostat stuck in the shut position - probably a legacy of using radiator sealant compound to cope with previous leak problems which eventually turned into a head gasket rupture. Once the engine had cooled enough, we drove over the bridge to Magor services, and called Green Flag services for help. In an hour a mechanic arrived from Abergavenny, confirming my tentative diagnosis. Then we had another hour to wait for a tow truck collect us, arriving from Stroud, on the way home to Newport,. 

We'd promised ourselves fish and chips for supper, for a change, and the only resemblance to this to be found was a McDonald's 'Happy Meal' from the one fast food outlet still open late in the service area. A little bag of over salted dry stick-like frites and another bag containing three fish fingers. Another bag contained a couple of plastic kids toys. The frites would have make a Belgian lose the will to live. Why on earth? A children's meal was the only way it was possible to obtain a few small pieces of fish. The plastic toys pulled apart into to sections, one of which was the right size for a small child to get in its mouth, swallow and choke on. Incredible! It has to rate as one of the worst and most ill conceived meals I've ever had. It may even have been the first time I've ever eaten McDonald's style and it'll certainly be the last. Next time I'll go hungry.

By just after eleven we were home safely, enjoying a little cheese and a glass of wine before bed. It's rather strange to think that on my third journey to and from Bristol in a row there have been problems with the car's cooling system. Last week we went to Monmouth without any cause for concern, plus trips around down in traffic. Let's hope that this'll be the last occurrence, or else it'll be time to say goodbye to our beloved ancient Golf.

I drove the car across town to N.G. Motors our VW service garage in Splott this morning, hoping that the car wouldn't overheat on the way. Almost every traffic light was red, so I switched off the engine while I waited. It was just up to normal temperature by the time I arrived and handed it over. Then a walk into town, during which I discovered that the Lidl store on Tyndall street which offers a handy place to shop on my way back, has been demolished, and the adjacent land cleared for new buildings, one of which will be a new improved Lidl, to open by the end of this year. I wonder what the neighbouring buildings on the site will be?