Adjusting lifestyle

We appreciated the fact that it's still considerably cooler here at night time, and enjoyed a good long sleep, followed by breakfast on the terrace, just as the sun appeared over the roof of a neighbouring house an hour after dawn. Judith picked us up and drove us to the Church Shop for the celebration of the midweek Eucharist. Six of us were present. After a cup of coffee at Rosie's bar next door, we went shopping for a pair of pyjamas, as that was one thing I'd forgotten to pack. So now I have an ensemble consisting of a lightweight blue sweatshirt and red knee length shorts. Not exactly my kind of slumberware, but they'll do.

After the service, I went to the car rental depot in town to pay for this month's hire. The chaplaincy car was a write off earlier in the year, when a third party drove into the side of it, giving the locum priest minor injuries, and upsetting the routine pastoral life. Thankfully, another retired priest was in the vicinity on holiday and was able to give support until normality was resumed. I now have to get used to driving a small Nissan town car, although my use of will be limited, since walking as much as possible is the fitness priority while we're here. There aren't so many convenient buses to take us about town, as in Cardiff, so time saving excuses are removed from our more relaxed schedule.

We were saddened to discover that 'Modus Vivendi' the pioneering organic food shop that had opened this time last year in the street near the bus station was about to close, as part of mutating into an organic veggie box delivery service. The idealism of the young entrepreneurs who started this venture is indeed admirable, but it seems that trying again is part of their philosophy, so we wish them luck. So, we had to visit a greengrocers and a fish shop in a nearby street to provision ourselves before the long walk home.

Clare had a swim before lunch, and after a siesta, we walked down to Burriana beach for her to have another swim in the sea, then a drink before the long hill climb back to Urbanzacion Almihara. The entrance road is closed at the moment as Nerja's water company has excavated trenches to change underground pipework. Cars are diverted from the housing estate through the empty ground used for the town's Mercdillo, Tuesdays and Sundays, and motorbike driving instruction and testing several afternoons a week.

For supper we are a favourite of ours, swordfish - it's called Pez espada here, not Emperador, as it is in Alicante province. When we're out shopping on foot, it's convenient to buy this frozen, so that it survives the heat. But we can get it fresh as well, if we're conveniently out with the car and a freezer bag. It's wonderful to have so much fresh fruit too - figs, plums, cherries in abundance at this time of year, peaches. The challenge is not to buy too much at a time, so that nothing goes off before we're ready to eat. Those natural processes seem to speed up in this congenial climate.

  

Cold soup and Carmelites

Yesterday, it was cloudy though still pretty humid. We walked into town to visit Modus Vivendi for some organic veg, and had some of their delicious gaspacho soup, both to try, and take away. Then, another trip to Frigiliana hoping it would be a little cooler a few hundred metres above the coast, for another excellent lunch at La Bodeguilla. We both tried a local sopa de ajo blanco - a cold soup made with ground almonds and garlic - utterly delicious. I didn't realise that cold soups could be so easy to make given the right recipe and a decent blender.

Today, I took Clare to Velez Malaga by car to introduce her to a town I have begun to appreciate, and was pleased that her impression was as favourable as mine. First we drove up to the Fortaleza, and then into town, to park near the bus station before talking into the old town to see some of its sights. I was especially pleased that the key 16th century St John the Baptist Church, re-built on the site of the former mosque, was open when we got there. It's a church much associated with local Semana Santa observances and their cofradias, some of the key figures carried in procession are on display in side aisle chapels. I was most interested to see what had happened to the bay of the south east aisle, which is distinguished on the outside by remnants of the mihrab of the old mosque.

The shallow apse bears no trace of original decoration. It's simply a renaissance altar with the risen Christ at the centre, aformidable statement in its own right. Unusually, the risen Lord is flanked by two female saints, both Teresas. On the right is the nineteenth century Carmelite Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus - known as 'Little Flower'. On the left is Caremlite reformer and Saint Teresa of Avila, born 1515 in the same century this church was re-built. Both were mystics, both were Carmelite nuns, hugely influential for their spiritual teaching and witness to Christ. 

Velez Malaga had an established Discalced Carmelite convent from the seventeenth century, plus a convent of Poor Clares and a Franciscan Friary, amongst others. All are now cultural centres visted by tourists or used by artists - shrines to human creativity and only occasionally worship sanctuaries, as in so many other parts of modern Europe.

We found a restaurant on the Plaza de Andalusia where we could lunch outdoors under a canopy of plane trees with a noisy population of parakeets in the leafy canopy above us. We had another chance to try local recipes - on this occasion a green salad which included raisins, walnuts, a soft goat/cow cheese, dressed with caña de miel - the distinctive light  sugar cane molasses, once a key product of local agrarian industry. A memorable flavour. It gave us strength for another circuit of historic streets to visit the old consistorio and realise this time how it's linked to the modern building next door which houses the Centre for Exile Studies, and its documentary archive, all funded by the Fundacion Maria Zambrano, as an enthusiastic volunteer guide proudly recounted. At last I'm getting confidence to engage in conversations beyond the call of domestic shopping.

 

Remembrance of taste past

This morning, I had a preparation session at the Balcon Hotel for a wedding this coming Thursday. Clare came and joined me afterwards and we did some shopping, including another visit to the new 'Modus Vivendi' eco-shop. This time, we bought some excellent rye bread, delicious olives, sourced from the Tarragona area, and a bottle of high quality grape juice, pressed from Graciano grapes I've never heard of, from the vicinity of Toledo - not a grape concentrate, but such a rich intense juice, it keeps imparting flavour diluted with ten times its volume of water, if not more. Delicious!

I also bought a bottle of white bio wine sourced from Montilla-Moriles near Cadiz using Verdejo grapes. The first taste took me back to Greece forty years ago, and the sun soaked flavour of white wine used in retsina - I didn't then appreciate retsina, it's an acquired taste, but plain white was usually on offer as well, and that pure simple flavour so reminds me of when I first learned to enjoy drinking wine, in the days when Greek wine was a variable feast. At least wine in those days was fairly preservative free, meant to be drunk young and fresh. It could, however, be inconsistent in a way that's not true of wine retailed nowadays. 

I suspect the quality of this Spanish Verdejo is always consistent. The experience of modern western organic wine-making behind it, captures an ancient taste for the modern palate with little chemical intevention. The same region produces the Amontillado fortified wines of similar character. I'm less enthusiastic about drinks whose quality is best appreciated in small sips, that make me hot 'n dizzy if gulped. To each their own taste.

   

Eco-tienda and Norwegian nuptials

We made an effort to walk into town this morning despite the heat, to find a new Eco-store called 'Modus Vivendi' just in the process of opening, according to a publicity flyer we picked up. It's close to the bus station, whose make-over is almost complete. The sun shade canopies are now in place, but work on pavement tiling still has to be done. Perhaps it's deemed to hot to work.

We chatted with the young couple Ian and Nieves whose eco-project the store showcases. They are still in the process of stocking the store, having only taken it over a couple of weeks ago, and their website is still a work in progress They not only offer food and wine, but also a source of seeds, plants, gardening equipment and information for people taking an interest in growing food on their own fincas. There's also a social space for people to meet and learn about environmental issues and organic horticulture. A very imaginative concept. 

We stocked up on veggies, wished them well, and plodded home in the heat, stopping on our way to buy some fresh fish for lunch - some small merluza plus a couple of oreos a smaller fish with big eyes, which the fishmonger threw in, for us to try, after I asked their name. One minute in the frying pan. Delicious snack while cooking a paella to host the merluza. It seemed we had a lot of fish to eat, but together with the amount of veg and rice, it was just right for two people.

Later in the afternoon I walked back into town for the wedding blessing in El Salvador of the couple from Alesund in Norway. I've been corresponding with them for several months determined to learn a few suitable liturgical phrases to say in Norwegian as part of the service.The couple had a year old toddler, looked after by one of the bridesmaids, except that he toddled around and joined mum and dad every now and then. He couldn't be separated from them during the vows, but they managed very deftly by one holding him while the other took the hand and spoke the words, then swapping the boy for the reverse process. The rings were a little more of a challenge, so he was briefly collected for a circuit of the side aisle, then returned for the nuptial blessing. All done without embarrassment, with natural dignity.

The couple wanted musical accompaniment from a string trio, and it worked very well. Despite the fact that a couple of the pieces of music were new to them, the three young women players delivered well. The big surprise however was the bride. In between scripture readings she sang an a capella song to her husband, whose words she'd written, with a traditional tune. The melody was hauntingly beautiful. Her pure clear voice filled the resonant acoustic space of the church perfectly. It was quite impossible not to be moved. Afterwards, I asked if she'd been trained or sang in a choir, and she said not at all. She said she only sang in the shower. Without rehearsal, she'd tackled a demanding melody, with some long sustained notes, in perfect pitch throughout, and thought nothing of it. That was my day's reward for making the effort with those Norwegian phrases. More literary than colloquial sounding, if I understood the feedback aright which I received after.

After the intensity of quite a simple, but different ethos of service from ones I've conducted lately, I was quite drained. Clare same down to meet me half way, and we stopped for a drink at a bar on the return trip. Another one of those days when the heat makes me feel my age.