Projects ...

Having returned to Stanhope and the third cottage of the row of seven to have provided a peaceful haven over the past five years, projects pop up and patiently await ... the one that tempted the return, a retreat centre on the main street, perhaps parallel now with the Graceful Ageing Centre at the still empty residential home on the road out of town updale ... long imagined and now maybe timely ... other properties suitable locally ... the need clear, as temporary places for folks discharged from hospitals and supported living as a lifestyle choice ...

Patience being the third of the treasures of Tao and the toughest for your blogger ... Compassion and Simplicity come naturally now ... all appears to be unfolding in perfect timing and mutuality is the indicator and guide ... in the new world coming, beyond greed, envy and competition, projects are mutually beneficial ... Wheels to Meals being an example as well as a thread of the next project with the elders of the Dale ...

Meanwhile, another role, developed this past year, house-sitter, elicits an invitation from a very old friend from leftist times in London ... now living in west Wales and offering a three month stay while he is away touring Europe ... gratefully declined, since the role is secondary and aligned with other projects now ... which may themselves provide the simple shelter required ...

Shelter at its simplest is re-imagined in the new world coming ... away from houses as investments and buy to let ... away from excessive space to be filled with stuff ... towards experimental forms, like co-housing ... inter-generational models embracing mutual benefits ... ethical time-shares ... and shelter as a basic human right ...

Ironically, resources to support these models arrive via traditional house builders and excessive land values in the south ...  maybe something that will change if London sheds its financial services in the wake of the retreat from European unity ...

The surreal politics is harder to ignore now ... and tricky to maintain perspective ... to discern when the ludicrous is best ignored and when it is necessary to act ... it is clear enough, however, that where our attention goes, energy flows and our precious energy is better focused on building the new world we want than the old, decaying one we don't ...

From Brockwood Park arrive invitations to events this year ... always a joy ... just have to find a cat-sitter ... the house can take care of itself  ...

Return to the known ...

Brief blizzard having reverted to damp greyness the test for equanimity is weather related ... the joys of English winter ... sometimes other seasons too ... the hospitality in Durham is warm though and wonderful to catch up with a dear friend ... and a lovely daughter ... the other working all week ...a bus trip to Stanhope feels like returning home and after catching up with friends, a message arrives from Spain ... friends and erstwhile neighbours having rented their riverside cottage to a dodgy tenant are seeking a reliable house sitter ... sounds like a job for someone with recent experience in the art ...

Other reconnections in Durham, along with wardrobe expansion thanks to various charity shops and a more expensive visit for boots ... the others having worn out after good service on the many hundreds of miles in Spain and Portugal ... items best not skimped on ...

Plenty of energy for Stanhope projects, long gestating and now wanting to be born ... but that's for next week ...

North ...

Warm farewells from Joana last night, Diana this morning ... John and Rosemary apparently the last two customers, though that may change ... Rosemary, from Edinburgh, writes under the name Eliza Earsman, has several books published, working on another here ... calmly convinced of the literal truth of the Bible, though not concerned to proselytize ...

Since the flight north is this evening, since the sky is clear, Sun warm, breeze cool, and since legs are eager, the plan is three hours west to Fuseta for lunch, train to Faro, final 5km walk to the airport ... Ecovia providing off road route along the coast ...

Restauranta Alota for the third visit and friendly greeting, wonderful meal and early enough to miss the Saturday rush ... the doubling of the weekday price paid without blinking ... equanimity maybe assisted by spare euros ... and at the airport the most expensive coffee in Portugal at €1.60 ... airport staff get 25% discount ... airports being more like shopping centres ... with a great scam of denying passengers the right to bring water or other liquids through security and charging exorbitant prices for it on the other side ...

Rob, our pilot, tells us we are passing Porto and will be over Santiago de Compostela soon ... which feels slightly surreal ... it's ten days walking. ..

And so, uneventfully, to a wintry Newcastle, a walk across the road to the hotel ...equanimity mixed with weariness, since after midnight is long past bedtime ...

Mind shifting ...

These days in Tavira pass pleasantly enough, the mind in transition between the adventure past, the adventures ahead ... daily gentle exercise ... around town ... yesterday along to Barril and a chance encounter with Andre for more warm conversation and clarification ... his field not psychodrama but trauma ... his wife not Dora but Dory ... though still unsure of the spelling ...

Jon, not John, reveals his role as a writer and shares his magazine, Reconnect, along with his dream of community in Andalusia. .. and identification with Jewishness and homosexuality ... reflecting on the power of these identities, to what extent they define the person, neither feature apparent in the initial conversation where common themes of community and spiritual growth were resonating strongly ...

This morning the legs fancied following the river upstream on quiet roads through orange groves ... an hour North to a river crossing, an hour return ... another long conversation with Joana ... then John, who arrived yesterday ... his Brazilian wife unable to live with him in England, thanks to immigration rules in that benighted land ... other EU countries would allow her to stay with her EU English husband ... for now, anyway ... the conversation turns progressive ... more and more folks waking up it seems ...

Another full day in Tavira before wandering across to Faro, maybe some walking ... and the evening flight ...

Tavira, Teeth, Hair ...

After sorting the teeth problem it was time for the hair, untended since Sarria and the €8 barber. A quiet back street unisex salon called, three staff, no other customers and a leisurely trim followed by a wash, normal procedure to remove the bits of hair ... and happily anticipating a slightly dearer cut ... though visibly shaken when the young hairdresser said €75 ... perhaps she meant €17? Actually it was €7.50 ... lost in translation along the way ...

More hostel customers appear ... Keth from New Zealand, a Finnish woman and her German boyfriend, Diogo, a young Portuguese from Porto, working as a chef here and all round the country ... John, from Totnes, travelling in his camper van and finding the nights a little cold ... and a deep conversation continued at a bar ... hitting the same frequency for an hour or so ...

Another warm and sunny day ... snow forecast for UK and some winter clothes required soon ... another few days with the winter dodgers first ...

Return to Tavira ...

Look, Jane, Ollie and Chico head off early for a beach walk before Jane's continuing appointment at the hospital in Faro ... putting the toothache into perspective, though it will want sorting soon, meaning an ever widening gap ... a wander along with Andre for the promised chat, though details of psychodrama not revealed ... more touching story of the mid-childhood traumas which led him to psychotherapy as a practitioner and expert in the field of psychodrama ... feeling drained of energy in the daily exchanges, despite some topping up with status validation from peers ... a fan of Krishnamurti ... always a positive reference point here, though understanding a fraction of his message ... ongoing study and, more important, ongoing application of the principles expounded the key ... a warm exchange of energy, hopefully mutual, and maybe more in Tavira this coming week ...

An hour to Luz and another to Santa Luzia, with chirpy "Bom Dias" met with a variety of responses ... sometimes ignored, sometimes returned, not always in Portuguese ... a Nepalese bloke, waiting for transport to the orange picking, responds with the word he associates with a Caucasian walking with a rucksack: Trekking? Orange harvest in full flow and the increasingly affluent locals decreasingly keen on the work ... EU citizens from lower income countries recruited, along with Nepalese and others on 3 month working visas ...

A light lunch in the sun ... rather hot today and the reason for the retired couple from Penistone in Northern England, since relocated to Condom, the unforgettably named (for those of us with a puerile sense of humour) town in South West France, to spend two months here each year ... the winter dodgers also in evidence at the Pousada de Juventude ... Rosemary from Edinburgh, Chris from Leeds ... early retired teacher ...

A warm welcome from Diana, who has been on holiday from her job at the hostel, from Paolo and later from Joana ... making this place feel like the Tavira home ...

Finally addressing the teeth question, the first place visited offers an appointment in ten days with a call if a cancellation appears ... popping in to see Geoff produces five more books for the hostel and directions to Joaquim, the dream dentist, who explains the options and offers the solution by tomorrow, along with a prescription for drugs to enable a full night's sleep ... plus advice on avoiding warm food and placing the painful side on the pillow ... heat, he says helps the pain producing bugs to prosper ...

Tomorrow? No plan ... some mooching around ... see what turns up ...

Sao Bras ...

After a very quiet day yesterday, resting, reading and a short stroll round the block, 3 or 4 km ... today was the New Year Tea Ceremony with the Almond Blossom Sangha, and a trip by car to a very plush property near Sao Bras de Alportel ... Quinta de Pombal, owned and run as a centre for Japanese style Zen Buddhism by a German woman ... rented to the Interbeing style Buddhists for the day ... Buddhists in general being tolerant folks, though there have been exceptions historically and recently in Myanmar with persecution of the Rohingar Muslims by mainstream, so-called Buddhists ... labels being only marginally helpful ... know folks by their deeds, not by their words or religions ...

Fairly formal style after the silent sitting and walking, with ritual tea pouring, passing, bowing ... reminiscent of the Soto Zen monks at Throssel Hole tucked away in the North Pennines of England ... all meals taken in the same manner, meaning mostly cold food by the time you get to taste it ... good training in equanimity and especially for gluttons ... the Theravadans up by Belsay have another method. .. fasting from lunch until breakfast next day ... allowing one big bowl, into which goes as much as you want, and if you want dessert, it goes in the same bowl ... well it all goes together into the stomach after all ...

After tea and cakes, each person invited to offer a song or reading ... which was nice ...

Forms for practising the spiritual life are interesting ... often helpful, as long as they are seen as practises and not as of sacred significance in themselves ... well not anymore than any mundane thing anyway ... the formless seems the purest way, yet where to hang your hat? How for seekers to find their Sangha? And how to pass the time enjoyably ... uplifting entertainment ... why not?

Reflecting this morning that in another week it will be Newcastle and Durham ... and for some folk a week's winter break on the Algarve counts as a holiday ... no need to wander far now, though Aljezur briefly considered ... a wander along the coast to the Tavira Pousada de Juventude seems most likely ...