Sunny jail ...

Since this house sitting is voluntary, it may seem silly to characterise the Casa as a prison ... but the picture might give that impression ... it's a theme explored before with expat life ... when the fear forces such security that the inmates create their own jail ... as it turns out, the insurance companies play a part, though it has been noted that fixed bars like these protect property whilst undermining personal safety in case of fire ... different department perhaps ...

And fences, alarms, bars, dogs all reinforce the fear ... call it in ...  luckily here at the Casa the roof terrace gives a feeling of freedom, the fences are few and Poppy the ancient cat is not aggressive. ..
Maybe the house had need of some security in the past. .. valuables to protect and children too ... some activity bordering on illegality. .. attracting not just police but also other players in the game ...

All is peaceful now ... the bars mostly ignored ... and if I owned the place (purely hypothetical )?

There would be no bars ...

Guests ...

.... guests arrived one month on from Stanhope departure ... ex-neighbours Lynda and Neil from three doors along Wear Terrace plus Neil's son and Barcelona artist Reece ... useful for quick sanity check, since they know me well enough ... and it appears that a month of solitude in a surrealish house has not unhinged me ... and plenty of time for philosophy ... always helpful to leaven the thinking, reading and writing with some conversation ... back to Marbella with them today ready for their temporary return to Stanhope and Barca ... Spain has seduced them and they are on their way in a couple of months ... so, if anyone is looking for teachers of English, maybe around Valencia, post a comment on here and they will be in touch ...

The promised photograph never materialised ... maybe one of them can post one on so readers can see them ... the blog is thin on pics, an omission to be addressed.

Speaking of which, and getting back into cynical vein ... taking the Toll Road to Marbella afforded some new views of urbanisations ... let's see what beauties may be captured .... think Holywood taste ... the Land of Oz keeps popping into mind ... all fur coat and no knickers ... a quantum physics view of cement and plastic as materials from Danah Zohar, suggested that such brutalist structures (albeit fancified) were inert, not wearing and weathering with the house, the elements and the inhabitants.

Photo expedition on the way!

As for guests, the first ones have been fun and enabled a review of the facilities as well as some heavy lifting to clear more space. Since one looks differently when others are present, it may be an idea to dust in the corners and even move ornaments a bit ... or move the ornaments into a cupboard ... these are not their expressed observations, they may wish to comment ... like trip advisor for house sitters ...

A week to recover from the excitement, then Claire arrives ... the one responsible for landing me here in the first place ...

Disco ...

Aficionados of Land Rovers will know the nickname for the Discovery ... it's a new word in my vocabulary and one to be avoided ... along with any similar kind of gas guzzling monster ...

However, on this assignment, a battered Land Rover comes with the house and cat and may be useful for researching under cover on the Costa.

Musing on a first encounter with such a vehicle when you have no intention of driving off road ....and considered whether the driver feels safer ... those outside the vehicle are not in the equation of course. .. yet since the vehicle is the size of a small minibus, it is reducing manouevrability for little benefit in passenger or freight ... hmmm

In its favour, the name does suggest finding new places, unlike similar tank-like monsters which add to the superiority complex of the driver with a dash of aggression with, names like Warrior, Shogun and Killer (may have made the last one up) ...

Anyway, there are buses and walking routes (albeit dangerous), and the Disco will be used gratefully ... and sparingly ... suggestions for a pet name as well as a nickname ( my last car, a powder blue Nissan Micra, was called Rosy and very feminine ... seem to have missed the point of having ego enhancers as vehicles ...)

Boys and their balls

Since humans partake in the creation of the world in relation with each other as well as all the other entities, bits and pieces, energy and all that ... and since the male of the species is less evolved emotionally than the female, he finds special games to play to ease the pain of having to emote with other chaps (emoting with the other gender is a far more complex subject for another post and possibly another blogger) ...

Lots of these more obvious games involve balls, mostly round, of different sizes ... the games played with each particular ball indicate national and class preferences ... and as humanity has evolved temporarily to be spectators more than players, the games are played by taking sides and talking endlessly about the details of the games watched either at the games or on the mind conditioning machine. Sometimes the spectators get bored just watching and commentating and have a good old fight with the supporters of the other team ... actually there was even a small war in South America sparked by a football match (in 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras)... on the plus side one of the few redeeming features of the horror show which was the 1st World War (known for a brief period as the war to end all wars), were the widespread Christmas truces of 1914, including football matches .... this was strongly discouraged in subsequent years, since it was deemed rather early for sentiments of peace and goodwill, Christmas or no Christmas ... and yes, since you ask, the main protaganists were mostly signed up to various branches of the eponymous religion ... Jesus must have been most confused who he was supposed to be supporting...

Back to the balls and the Costa ... known also as the Costa del Golf ... this has been commented on during the Algarve walk last year and for any readers unaware involves walking or riding a milk float round a manicured piece of countryside, taking it in turns to hit a small hard, ball into a small hole with a big stick. Of course, as with all the ball games, the real reasons are multi-layered ... golf being one of the preferred locations for business talk, complaining about the other gender and a known hang-out for freemasons ... at the end of the ball holing (usually 18 times each) is the clubhouse, where the drinking happens...

Down at this end of the Costa is a posher ball game which requires horses and humans (mostly blokes again) recklessly rushing about swinging big sticks to hit hard, small (but not as small as golf) balls into goals. They call it polo and it is apparently popular with royalty ... and Argentines ...

In case any readers are interested, your blogger's preferred ball playing involved football and squash, both far too active for a pensioner (well this one anyway) ... more leisurely games like golf and snooker never appealed, which may explain my rather asocial nature ...

Nuance

Friends have pointed out a lack of nuance in commentary on the Costa ... and it's true ... so, in a spirit of half-hearted balance, here goes ...

Firstly, the broad brush strokes are offering a particular perspective ... in some ways it seems a shame to go overboard with detail ... and the blog is not setting out to judge folks who want to live their lives in misery or indeed to pronounce on what constitutes a good and happy life ... (through another prism make that "good" or "happy", since whole tribes subscribe to the idea that "good" requires suffering) .... hmmm ...

And clearly the Costa del Sol is not just Brits abroad, whether package holidaymakers, retired wage slaves, fleeing gangsters, all the support tradesfolk .... there are also all kinds of  nationalities  from Northern Europe ... South America ... Spanish middle classes and Spanish locals ... latest arrivals are Russians looking for warm, but not too warm, investments ...

To be clear also, just because the writer loves a simple life does not mean others don't love whatever they do in their gated communities .... maybe some first hand experience is required, or some reports from folks living life in that parallel universe anyway ... slipping across dimensions may be unwise.... like time travellers getting stuck in past or future, misguided researchers could be trapped in a hedonistic sun, sex and booze pit in Marbella ... or golf, spending eternity lost on the fairway ...

... which leads neatly to the next topic on boys and their balls ...

Jesus ...pioneer of gated communities ...

Names are funny things, Catholics commonly call their boys Jesus in Spain, and one of the commonest on the Costa was Jesus Gil ... a colourful character, now dead, an admirer of the also dead Francisco Franco, military usurper of the democratic government after the bloody Civil War of 1936-1939 and dictator of Spain until his death in 1975 ... more on him later maybe, though the memories are only now fading and maybe best set to rest ... although as a Brit perhaps helpful to admit the perfidious role of "our" government, fence sitting while British activists joined up with the elected government and the International Brigades ... a warm up for the slaughter of 1939-45 across the rest of Europe while Spain and Portugal licked their wounds and helped their fascist pals as much as they could as neutrals and Switzerland looked after the money ...

Back to Jesus, who turned out rather less peaceful and compassionate than his namesake ... and seeing the opportunity on the Costa del Sol ... already known for famous and notorious visitors, like Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, various fleeing Nazis, and due to strained relations with Blighty over Gibraltar a haven for retiring British gangsters ... shifted his gated community operations from its initial base in Segovia, in his homeland, to Marbella, after being pardoned by his pal Franco after 54 people were crushed to death in a development free of architects, planners, quantity surveyors and all those pesky regulations which hinder free enterprise.

The tranquil beauty that resulted along the Malaga coast lies in a parallel universe ... this was tasteless tat and only recently being brought to book ... as long as money was being made it survived, however dubiously ... now it is changing ... gradually ... the Costa del Soul has some way to go, but things can change quickly when the time is right ... Jesus Gil is long gone and remembered as a figure of fun, albeit sinister ... more Mussolini than Franco perhaps ... the British gangsters are seeking other bolt-holes ... the inflated property market is having a temporary boom, with Russian money of unknown provenance seeking a haven ...

And what of the future of gated communities? Are we to continue to separate - keep the others out? It is still an option in the old world ... perhaps the re-opening of public spaces will prevail ... better for all of us in the end ... shall we try it?

Wear, Dao and Guadiaro

Settling for now by the Guidiaro, it seems right to acknowledge the third river in the blog ... having wandered from the Wear in the North Pennines of England around Spain and Portugal, with the Dao in central Portugal as a direction of travel as well as a nod to the ancient and timeless philosophy ...and back to the Wear for a while before being drawn to the unlikely Costa del Sol with the intriguing invitation to take care of this once luxurious villa overlooking the old bridge over the Guidiaro ... far enough from the coast ... just ...

Starting a new blog with a new title was considered, but it all hangs together somehow ... not sure how and trying not to force it or drop into familiar patterns ... yet, having irresponsibly abandoned Stanhope by the Wear, the base for A Place to Be as well as the Wheels to Meals project, for a second time, it seems worth examining if there is any purpose for any of it ... and collaborators come and go in the story and stories .... some encourage the writing, and writing itself is worthwhile if there are readers enjoying it ... the question of form is open ... a book is suggested, but a blog is a valid contemporary form too ... if writers could be persuaded, a wiki has always been tempting ... was certainly tried in the days of Du design and animation ... writing has indeed restarted after a year of rest and was suggested as the ideal occupation by Juliet when she imagined her caretaker ... a comfortable, peaceful location with internet and material with which to work ... maybe ...

Another theme returning is the intentional community ... and where better for an extreme contrast than the horror that is the gated communities along the costa ... where fear reigns ... security tries to protect the inmates, but only reminds them of their fear ... and then the frightening folks are often locked in the sunny ghettos with you! Best leave the details for another post ... the sunny place for shady people quip from Graham Greene about the French Riviera surely applies here ...

Having landed here, tempted by Claire, a recent connection through A Place to Be via Joe via the festival at Burnlaw via via via .... who knows how these things link up ... the heart goes for it anyway and lets the purpose follow ... the point about these places in the sun (maybe even the gated ghettos) are to insert some soul ... remove the fear ... the climate and the Spanish psyche are propitious ... the old world of toxic money is crumbling ... technology harnessed for good, allied to permaculture, and of course aligning to love meets the needs of the new earth ... and research shows intentional communities all over the Iberian Peninsula ... so ... is Casa del Puente wanting a community for its current three bedrooms, potential fourth and fifth, plus land for growing, seasonal yurts and so on?

Maybe it's a launch pad for places more rural? Both? Neither?

Let's see ... meanwhile the crumbling casa has a custador and guests are welcome ...