Thursday 25 December 2014

At Ventarique with the expats . . .

Yesterday's walk was good. The first long one since Saturday and my body is ready for more. Mind too.

After testing the limits on the camino, 25 km seems right, enough. Ventarique to Albox is 6, 7 or 9 km, depending on the route. The rambla, the dried up river bed is most direct. I headed up through Llano del Espino, picked up the top road, wandered along in the warm morning sun, past villas with pretentious gates, big fences, fierce dogs. Fear. The curse of the rich and not so rich. All this is mine and bad people want to take it away. I say hello to the dogs, but they keep on doing their job, setting off neighbouring dogs. It is one of the soundtracks of the area.

Svein and Maureen don't have a dog, since they are only here in the winter and not all of that. They do have locks and bars though. And fear. They said they have been mugged three times. Not here, once in Madrid, pulled over by robbers posing as plain clothes police; other countries.

I reflected on life on the camino, travelling alone in the wilds, in villages, towns and cities. Without much stuff, but nevertheless with sometimes €300 cash in my pocket, card, passport. It never occurred to me that someone might steal it. There are warning signs in some of the bigger albergues, which saddened me, but fear?

One of the other soundtracks in the house, on the idyllic terrace overlooking the rambla, towards the mountains, is Maureen's music. She loves Matt Munro, Kenny Rogers, Abba, Harry Nielsen. Loves to share it. The only Nielsen song I know is not on her selection; the soundtrack to a heart-break when I was 20. Rosie was a vicar's daughter from Essex. Not the first woman I fell in love with, nor the first I slept with, but the first where both those delights came together. I couldn't get enough of her. Studies took second place as we embraced the joys of young love. She visited my family, I visited hers.
I don't think her father, the vicar, saw me as the ideal suitor for his daughter. Whatever, when she returned (I had come back separately), it was bad news.
Nielsen's poignant song "I can't live, if living is without you" infiltrated my grieving psyche. I made a half-hearted attempt to kill myself; pills and brandy. A dramatic gesture. Not serious enough to trouble the medical staff, or anyone else for that matter.

My heart healed. Scar tissue is stronger than the original and it took a while to happen again. Pema Chodron says, "Life keeps breaking your heart, until you leave it open."

From Ventarique to Albox was about 70 minutes stroll. The hotel bar was open, so I had a coffee on the terrace, sitting in the sun in t-shirt, watching the Spanish arrive in coats, seeking the shade; expats in shirtsleeves, seeking the sun. Parallel lives mostly. Expats happy with enough words to order beer, tapas and a few other things, Spanish hospitable, some speaking English, mostly not. A generational thing. The expats who settled here in their hundreds of thousands from the sixties on are getting old now. Andy, next door, manages the team selling funeral plans. The final choice - on ice here while relatives sort out flights over; on ice in a box, air freight back to their roots.

After Albox, a sign for Almanzora, 4km. Seems a good distance, there and back a comfortable Christmas Day walk.

At Geminis Bar, some tapas, a coffee, an hour writing. Recording some of the narratives created during the walk.

Back to Albox along the rambla, a rest in town, then back along the road on the other side, which we drove along on Tuesday, returning from market. Longer perhaps, more villas, gates, fences, dogs.

Back at the house by 5. A gentle day's wander, plenty of pit stops, observing life, writing, getting the juices going again.
Maureen and Svein have eaten. Declined the invitation to lunch next door. A few brief words with relatives of Andy, visiting from up the coast. Interested in the camino and free life. Getting beneath the expat stereotype.

Maureen is looking for a cruise. January can be wintry here and she wants Burma, South America, somewhere warm for a few weeks. It is an organisational nightmare for her, co-ordinating cruise, flights to UK to pick up cruise clothes from Maesteg, flights to cruise start point. I think she thrives on the activity.

She makes my supper. I want to do some cooking, but she likes to do it too.
Persuading her to put her feet up and have a meal cooked for her may be a challenge too far.

Rested, I am exploring options. Across to the coast, wander west round to Tavira and Portugal, couchsurfing, Helpxing, hitch-hiking? Over to Seville, the camino route from there? Up to Santander with Svein and Maureen, Camino del Norte from there? That possibility is not until March though, which is a winter away.

Maybe post possibilities on Helpx, see who responds. See how the cruise plans develop.

Practicing patience, allowing the journey to unfold, is Life School's homework for the holidays. And compassion for Svein, wanting a peaceful life, and for Maureen always on the go, needing to be in control.

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