Fuseta ...

Since stores are required for the next 3 days, fasting or accepting an oats and rice diet the perfectly possible alternative, three locations about the same 5 km distance from the elusive Casa are on the list ... Fuseta wins and hopefully a new path is found, heading south and west ...that's the easy part as Fuseta is a place and by the coast ... roads asphalt and sandy want to go there ... the Eco-Via picked up again at the shore ... the return is trickier since the destination has neither name nor village attached ... although note has been made of nearby settlement for reference and landmarks such as garishly painted houses and particularly barky dogs ...

Meanwhile, the bigger return is booked for a week from tomorrow, mind having settled on Stanhope, an aeroplane is required to accelerate the trip ... just over three hours for a journey that might otherwise take more than a month ... and a boat ... which was considered ... younger daughter's announced adventure to the Philippines the trigger, older settled daughter another heart tug along with friends ... the Hopi message speaking clearly of things already considered in the solitude of the walking ... and a little excitement now for the renewal with the adopted home in the hills, by the river ... whether it is reverting to familiar patterns or accepting the flow and where it wants to go, who knows?

The mind and legs were ready for another long walk, but the right foot is grateful for a rest ... perhaps still feeling the effects of the fall in San Vicente, perhaps the shoe not quite fitting right ... anyway it all feels fine ... another week around Tavira, then back for the joys of winter in the North Pennines ... on a sunny day with a blanket of snow on the fells, there is nowhere better ...

Before all that, this morning's Sangha sit in the yurt was good ... 20 minutes sitting, two circuits of slow, mindful walking, 20 minutes more sitting ... some bowing to the Buddha and Thay on the altar, joined today by the image of a Sangha member from Holland recently passed over and whose funeral ceremony is today ...

Then a chat with new guests Dora and Andre, coming to the last week of a month long holiday to mark Andre's retirement from his work in Psychodrama (for those who are thinking they have experienced a few of those, it is actually a particular method, of which more may be learned in the next few days). Dora works in the field of pre-school education and, like many women from Northern Europe at this time, has had her pension postponed by several years, thanks to demographic pressures, financial mismanagement, political choices and so on ... still grateful every day for the income without working here, though not expecting it to last ...

Lunch in Fuseta is fish again ... that's what they do here ... the lady is invited to choose and produces three different specimens, all with bones to slow the eating, due to three missing front teeth, and all with eyes to test the mind and open mouths as if to say ... really? Elder daughter says, if it has a face she won't eat it ... or she did once ... anyway, here is the photo so you can share the dilemma. .. and a rather lovely sunrise this morning before meditation ...