Happiness

Lost my beloved green glasses a few weeks ago and found them outside this morning dangling from a red geranium plant.

Oliva, Oliva, Oliva

Simplicity, paring down to what we need. The Lost Steps, a tatty book I found on a charity shop bookshelf. Who was it by? Alejo Carpentier. A revelation about what we need, enjoying it and then thinking we need more than this and finding out to our loss, that we don't. Lesson learnt? What do you think? We're human beings living in a world surrounded by 'things' and I mean, that because they are merely things. And proving ourselves, to ourselves, by striving to do this, that, and why? What do we need to prove to ourselves? Why do we need to prove anything to ourselves, putting the whole, proving things to other people, aside? Why isn't it enough just to be?

Truth

Someone I know brought up the truth yesterday. Questioning it. Made me wonder who's the grand judge of what is the truth in a given situation? Who gets to say? And is the truth always the best option? The only option? What's the case for lying sometimes? Is a lie someone else's truth; is it what they want to be the truth? We can ask a question and not want to hear the truth, so who is at fault, the one who lies but makes the other happy, or the one who asks the question and not wanting a truthful answer? Is the truth and maybe pain the better option? Short term effect or long term?
It's a minefield. And that's only the beginning of the questions.

We're all different. We all have different angles on what truth and lies are. The Commonwealth Games accomodation.... teams saying the facilities, aren't adequate. And the organisers saying, well your ideas of hygiene and my ideas of hygiene are different, so how can we agree?
Your idea of truth is different from my idea of it. And it changes all the time. Truthful to ourselves. Is that the way to be?

September

I love September when the weather is so warm and sunfilled mellow and ripening the apples, brightening the leaves to red and orange and gold-brown. Lulled to sleep and yet the cool morning air means action. New beginnings. Farewell to the summer, but this month holding the relaxed air of the word 'summer' so it doesn't quite feel like goodbye.
Possibilities. That flutter in the stomach. Hope. Maturity. Peace. And the smell of cider and berries.

The beach

The spanish come here. They own or rent apartments and leave their chairs and parasols on the beach. Not many swim out into the waves to be lifted up and down by the swell, slapped on the back or in the face by the foam, made to laugh nearer the shore when the waves knock you over, but we did. And we laughed and swallowed water thick with salt. The sea was different to the salty turquoise water I drank a couple of years ago, but the mediterranean is my favourite sea. The current pulled us to the left and it was hard work swimming back so we were online with our towels on the sand, but that only made me glad. I like having to use my muscles to get where I want to be.

Even though not many came in the water, the beach was not crowded. Families were there, grandfathers and grandsons came down about four in the afternoon. People arrived after work, to sit and read. Older women, bikini clad, walked in twos through along the shoreline, talking. People sunbathed. Ate. A swimwear clad businessman told his daughters to be quiet as he spoke endlessly on his mobile. They were french.

The Red Cross lifeguards sat on their high perches, there were blue boxes enclosing toilets, rubbish bins, children's play areas, volleyball and football nets and clean, clean, sand and sea.

Some Valencians let us borrow one of their parasols and after that, every day, they smiled, nodded, waved. Did they want to talk? The son had spent six months working in a hotel in Stratford. He looked happy with his mother and sister and cousins in Bellereguard for the month.

It was cooler at the beach with a coastal breeze than inland. The sea was not as warm as we expected, but once in, delicious. And we found we could park, pull out and return home without having to reverse the car. What more do you want?

View from a Terrace

Calle de la Hoz

I'm missing Oliva. It was a superb week. Felt as if we had all of the time in the world and then it was over. And we filled our time well without rushing, feeling as you do, that you belong more and more in that space, place, time.

On waking the first morning, slightly cloudy, I thought that I'd seen the view from the terrace before. It was the same view I'd seen in Brazil, in Sao Paula and Rio. It was a view of the favelas. Chickens in cages on terraces, lines of washing, chairs, tables, higgledypiggledy, bricks and stones, white washed and rough, cracked and flaking, builder inducing sucking in of breath, shaking head and calculating rebuilding.
This is what I love about European buildings. Non-UK buildings and attitudes. Let the walls crumble, it's what's going on inside that matters. And as we explored the old town, more each day, it was clear that this wasn't anything like the favelas of Brazil. It was spanish, from the clapping, guitar playing, wailing group, to the sunbaked streets, the dark shadows, the geraniums, ornate doorways, the church with the passionate priest (more about that Sunday service later)the breezes, the smell of a sweet flower at night, the sense of humour.
Let me find another photo.

Rooftops

And this is what we woke to the next morning...

Spain

Ah. Oliva inbetween Valencia and Alicante. A haven. I need longer to take you through the drive from Alicante airport in the early evening light, past mountains on our left and the sea on our right, to driving through narrow one way roads in the old part of Oliva in the dark trying to find a tiny alley, the oldest street in Oliva, that was on the right when the google map said it was on the left. A dark, long-haired, tiny woman pushing a, what looked like four-year old girl who repeated everything she said, in a pram, answered our call for help and showed us the way, via an incident of us turning the car around when I couldn't get it in reverse (couldn't all week), so two cars coming the other way squeeeezed past, losing her at the bottom of a hill where there was a sharp turn, nowhere to park, parking on a sandy corner amongst other cars, asking two hopeless, drunk spanish women the way, showing them the map, they hadn't a clue, our fairy godmother with trainee godmother in tow, gesturing, about 'us english, eyes everywhere but where should be, shooting off....' We walked with her and she showed us the way. Hugs, kisses, laughs, shrugs and we climbed up the steep, walking only, Calle de la Hoz. Yes!! That was our destination. Back to the car, collect the case and bags and back to our haven. In the dark. What was the next day to bring we wondered as we devoured a packet of Fox's Cream biscuits we'd brought with us? Prior to this, a lovely, helpful, spanish only, terrible map drawing garage owner with a dog, had raised his eyes and said the place was dangerous and watch my two daughters...
We laughed that the episode was like the arrival of the heroines to the villa in Italy in the film 'Enchanted April' when they are met for their stay by a servant with a horse and carriage in the pouring rain in the middle of the night. He grabs their cases, runs off to the carriage with them. They follow, waving their brollies, a carriage ride worthy of a Hammer Horror Dracula...and the next morning, opening shutters to blue skies, sun dappled water, red geraniums and smiles. Sleep and let's see.