Village contrasts

We went to the railway station this morning to book seats to travel to Barcelona on Monday, when Clare returns home. To our surprise, the booking office was closed. A notice explained that station staff were on strike over proposals to privatize the network. Trains were still running apparently, and people were waiting for the next arrival. There was nothing we could do, so we went off to Carrefour to do the weekend shopping, and plan a car journey instead. We had no additional detail about the strike, its duration, or frequency of other days when stoppages are planned. With a flight to catch, the risk cannot be entertained.

After shopping, a visit to the beach and a siesta, we went for a drive, following the N232 main road west towards the mountains towards Morello. The road is good and not too busy, winding gently uphill up a river valley, revealing lovely mountain scenery perspectives with endless neatly laid out groves of orange and olive trees in every direction, and the occasional hill village perched above the main road, with buildings which, if not white painted display their pale honey coloured stone fabric, reminiscent of Britain's Bath stone. In each village, above the houses, the outline of the church rises, with interesting tower and baroque parapet giving a distinctive feature to the place.
 

After only ten miles, curiosity compelled us to stop in La Jana, as it was just about to awaken from siesta at half past five. It was cool and still in among the tall buildings in narrow streets. Once more we were struck by the lack of commercial advertising hoardings around the village. It was big enough to have a modest variety of shops and cafes, a bank, a town band, and this huge church, dominating the central square, with two finely crafted sets of burnished bronze doors. They were clearly new, but executed in a simple traditional style with images of Christ and the saints.
 

Opposite in the square was the stylish new-build ajuntamento. When the clock struck six, the fountains between the two resumed playing. We had a good humoured chat in basic Spanish with three old people sitting in chairs on the pavement in the shade outside their house, enjoying the evening hour. We attracted their curiosity as, it was explained to us, they had few tourists there. Indeed, to judge from vehicle traffic we saw, it's a normal agricultural village, still earning its keep from its traditional way of life healthily preserved. Modernity was there, but not allowed to degrade the quality of the public domain - apart from the inescapable multitude of parked cars. I noticed how few traffic control sign posts there were around the place. Did they feel they didn't need them, as they could rely on mutual good will, care and common sense? It reminded me of the world I grew up in, albeit a lot more colourful.

After drink in the main cafe on the square, we started our return trip, and on impulse we left the N232 for a brief look at the hill village of San Jorge or Sant Jordi in Catalonian. Again the restraint on public advertising was noticeble, even if there was more traffic signage, and a car park at the bottom of town. We walked up the main street in search of the main square and church we could see from the N232, and discovered more than we had imagined at this evening hour. The square had been transformed into an arena with viewing platforms above and barred safety cages at ground level for spectators and participants in a bull-baiting fiesta. It was crammed with people, and at one end, the local town band was installed on high, providing live music for the occasion.
 

It's impossible to see any value in cruelty to animals. An event like this gives a few young athletic men an opportunity to flirt with danger and show off in public - proving what? Many greater risks are taken daily by reckless driving, or carelessness at industrial work places, also due to showing off. But making a sport out of being cruel, just doesn't connect with me. The tradition goes back millennia, but when you look at ancient images, these are of - yeah OK - men performing gymnastic feats, vaulting over the beast's horns or hind quarters. All I saw and recorded these young men doing was taunting an animal, arousing its fears and self defence reactions. A huge section of this village community, people of all ages merely watched them with some measure of approval. How will explain how this adds value and dignity to life together?

I walked around the edge of the main square to get to the church square. Each street exit was blocked with safety barriers, as the truck transporting the beasts was parked there, also the ambulance. I'd only just begun to take pictures of this square when hubbub from the arena died to a hush. Within minutes, the ambulance was no longer on stand-by, but taking off with lights flashing. I don't know what happened, who got hurt or how, nor whether the spectacle would continue. For us it was already time to head back home.

The photos I took are posted here
 

Midnight fireworks at Peñíscola

At the Vinaros drop-in centre this morning Les and Brenda reminded us about tonight's fireworks display at Peñíscola, starting at midnight, so we resolved to go, and get plenty of rest during the day. This wasn't so difficult as it was humid as well as hot well into the evening. After supper, thanks to satellite TV, we sat and watched the performance of Bach's B Minor Mass at the Proms, the first time I'd listened to it straight through for many years. By the time we set out by car at 11.15pm it had cooled down enough to make an hour of standing on Peñíscola beach tolerably pleasant. 

The drive in the dark was an interesting challenge, but we found our way through the back streets of Benicarló and along the beach road, and stopped just past the boundary between Benicarló and Peñíscola, where we saw a free parking spot. Mindful of the risk of traffic jams at the end of the show, I turned the car around in the homeward direction before parking it, and crossed my fingers, just in case I'd failed to understand or recognise any parking restrictions. The last thing I wanted was for the car to get towed away at half past midnight!

We settled on a wooden walkway on beach, in the light of the almost full moon. I noticed here and there fishing rods with tiny lights on their tips planted in the sand and groups of people nearby seated at picnic tables attending them. Others had commandeered beach loungers, for hire during the day, for a relaxed view of the spectacle. A small group of young kids, not very well supervised by their parents were letting off firecrackers, just at the place where spectators were slowly making their ways on a beach steeped in darkness. We must have been a couple of miles from the peninsula fortress at Peñíscola, it was hard to tell in the dark, but I did get this shot before the floodlights were turned off.

 

When the fireworks came, my camera, sans tripod, for all its excellence at low light capture and image stabilisation, was simply not up to the task of taking useful firework photos at ten times magnification. Impressionistic at best, but you should see the thirty one other pictures  discarded in disgust.

Fireworks seem to be have been set off from several different points. One beneath the fortress, and at least two other locations along the beach itself. We had a good view from a distance, even if the delayed sound of fireworks exploding made it a little confusing on times.

We left punctually at twenty past twelve, and being so far from the area which would have been crowded with spectators, there were no traffic jams, and we were home by a quarter to one. That's the first time I've driven in the dark since I've been here, so I was feeling pleased with myself to have done so safely and without incident. Especially not a car towed away at midnight.

More Delta del Ebre

We took advantage of a cool cloudy morning start to drive back up into the Delta to visit the Tancada Lake nature reserve which we discovered yesterday but didn't have time to explore properly. We were welcomed by two young staff members at the reception area, and given a briefing by one who spoke good English. The reception area gives a brief introduction to the work of the reserve and a list of the birds most likley to be seen during the day's visit. It also doubles as a gift shop selling a variety of  Deltebre produce - various kinds of rice, wine, salt, honey, herbs and preserves, nicely packaged for tourists.
  

We then started out following a short trail through a series of salt evaporation ponds showing various stages of brine concentration right down to crystallisation.

This led to a hut with more elaborate introduction to the Delta's conservation projects. It doubles up as an observation hide, overlooking the nearest of the large brine ponds, and allows you to observe Flamingos feeding at a distance of fifty metres from ground level, if they've come that close to hand. However, just prior to our arrival, a helicopter and a light plane, both equipped for spraying insecticide to suppress mosquitos, had passed by the reserve at low level. We caught sight of scores of Flamingos rising into the air from distant ponds and re-grouping after a fly-past.

Only a handful settled close to the hide today.

A hundred yards away from the hide is a renovated (air conditioned) storage shed which presents a beautiful artistic video of the Delta through the four seasons of the year. I found this very moving and inspiring. On the walls of the building were descriptions of some distinctive local wildlife, each furnished with a small window shutter behind which was a video display of the creature described. One area of floor contained a video projection of maps of the Delta during its long evolutionary history. Altogether the room is simple and effectively designed as an educational environment for children and adults. The place is beginning to be popular with schools, we were told with enthusiasm.

Next to the shed is the tallest building containing a viewing platform with powerful telescopes for looking over the lake and salt ponds, within a radius of a kilometre. It may have once been a dwelling place. It has now been adapted to provide meeting rooms for visiting groups. All the way up the stairs to the observation deck the walls are stencilled with birdie images, and simple clear instructions in Catalan, Spanish and English about how to watch birds successfully. Ingenious, better than any throw away leaflet.

The deck was equipped with five powerful telescopes, one especially for small children to use to watch birds up to half a mile away. Around the perimeter wall was a frieze of images of the birds most likely to be seen at any time, very useful for settling disputes about what was visible afar off. We spent an hour up there in blazing heat, mitigated slightly by a breeze, then we took a break for lunch, returning to the same restaurant in Poblenou del Delta, to try some other local seafood specialities, to our great delight. I managed another hour gazing over the landscape and taking photographs, while Clare took a siesta in the otherwise empty air conditioned media room - we were a little ahead of returning evening visitors - apparently evenings and mornings are the best times for observation, but that didn't fit with our schedule.

When I thought I'd had enough exposure to the sun, we drove back into St Carles del la Rapita for Clare to have a swim on the nice sandy beach there - by late afternoon it was pretty busy - before returning home, and a few hours of looking at bird pictures, realising how difficult it is to get really satisfactory material if you don't have a decent telephoto lens. Unfortunately the battery expired on my Sony camera (which does have a 10x magnification lens) after only a couple of dozen shots. I'd failed to top it up since last use. It's good battery - serves me right for forgetting.

I loved the Delta, and could spend a long long time getting to know it all year round if I had the chance. My most memorable image is not one I captured on camera. As we drove down that long straight road out to Poblenou del Delta, I saw three terns in as many miles, each was flying solo above and along the irrigation canals flanking the road (banks often decorated with tall red or yellow irises), hunting for food, heads sharply down, inspecting the water below, and just occasionally fluttering and diving abruptly into the water - just six feet away from my open car window. Lucky the road was so straight at that moment!

Here's the view from the observation desk out across the road, and in the distance is the sand bar that forms the outer boundary of the sea lagoon. You can see my Deltebre photos here
  

Delta del Ebre explored

We took advantage of a coll and cloudy start to drive north to St Carles de la Rapita, a holiday resort with well cared for sandy beaches on the south side of the Delta del Ebre, so Clare could enjoy a comfortable swim. We then set out on the southernmost road across the Delta, dead straight, flanked by huge fields of rice, as far as the eye could see, with a variety of interesting looking dwellings. The road runs right out to a huge sand bar, ten miles long, a quarter of a mile wide, giving vast sandy Mediterranean beaches on the east side and more interesting saline wetlands on the west side. 

The sand bar links several islands and vast areas of salt ponds which are still in production. The enclosed lagoon is an in-shore fishery harvesting fish and crustaceans. The bird life is extraordinarily rich and the entire region has a series of conservation areas of great interest, because of the unique mix of salt-water and fresh water ecosystems, insect and bird life. Whenever I stopped to take a picture by an irrigation canal I saw several species of dragonfly, not just one. I just missed a photo of the beautiful elegant black winged Stilt in a roadside pond, but snapped a couple of Egrets (one walking across the road), some Flamingos and a little Stint, wandering around a muddy pool calling out for its partner. Such a treat.

Not far from the sand bar is a new Tancada lake wetland conservation area and interpretation centre. An old area of salinas has been reclaimed and is now managed to encourage the unique bird life which flourishes in this seemingly unpromising environment. By the time we got there the sun was high, it was nearly lunchtime and it wasn't worth paying the €7 entrance fee for just a short wander, so we resolved to return another day, and went for lunch at the excellent Terrassela de Saur restaurant in Poblenou del Delta, a few miles away. Here we had great fun deciphering a menu written in Catalan, before the English translation was produced.

This small village seems to have taken its present shape in the past forty years. It has a modern church and simple low rise buildings in modern materials, sympathetically laid out. There were plenty of guest houses and places to eat, but we couldn't see any kind of shop. The streets were remarkably free of advertising hoardings of any description - such a simple aesthetic pleasure. It may have expanded chiefly to meet the needs of visitors. If so, a very good job was done. its simple delights (including Catalan cuisine) advertise themselves.

Celebration at L'Ermita

As it was the fifth Sunday of the month, all three congregations of the Costa Azahar chaplaincy met for a united service at the L'Ermita de Vinaròs.

Ken had agreed to bring his euphonium to accompany hymns. I equivocated for ages about whether or not to take the guitar I've been loaned to play while I'm here. It's a long time, decades since I last accompanied a service I took, yet I wanted to know how this guitar would sound in the beautiful vaulted space of the chapel at L'Ermita, so in the end I took it with me, and as we were there an hour beforehand, I had the opportunity to play and enjoy the soundscape, just for pleasure. Then Ken arrived, and we looked at the hymns I'd chosen, figured out what key I would need to transpose into to provide an accompaniment, and then after a brief practice, it was time to arrange how the sanctuary could best be used with four of five chaplaincy worship leaders and myself taking part.

The service was preceded by the welcome announcement of the arrival date of the new chaplain, Father Clem, made by Michael Cowdery, the acting chairman of the church council.

This now sets Monday 10th September as my date to return home to Cardiff, in good time to get ready to share the beginning of term with students and St Mike's, and goodness know what else will come my way as Autumn unfolds. The lessons for the day yielded some useful reflections to preach on about praying to make way for the new Chaplain, and sharing in mission and ministry together with openness to God's surprises. There were about three dozen of us present, and twenty nine received Communion. Ken and I duetted for three of the four hymns, and I left him to accompany the final hymn 'Forth in thy name O Lord I go', as it has an irregular rhythm, naturally suited to be led by a single brass voice. It worked well, as did all the hymns, sounding beautiful in that lovely place of worship.
 

Twenty of us sat down together to lunch on paella in the restaurant next door after the service. It was a cheery family occasion, most enjoyable to share in. We got to Cala del Pinar beach, so that Clare could have a swim as it began to cool down in the evening, and ate a light salad supper afterwards - all we had room for after generous servings of an excellent local variation on the dish, served by the proprietor, who also kindly gave us access to the chapel earlier and made sure we had the microphones we needed, and knew how to operate them. A day to remember with appreciation, that's for sure.
  

Olympic launch

Last night, compelled by idleness and curiosity, I stayed up and watched the Olympic Games opening ceremony right to the bitter end. I was glad I did. It was an original perspective on Britain and things British which are worth appreciating and affirming, all spiced with a good measure of self-deprecating good humour. It was at every level a technical tour de force, involving over eight thousand people in an hour long pageant spectacle, before the lengthy athletes' parade and Olympic ceremonies began. It blended old fashioned  theatrical ingenuity on a grand scale with the use modern multimedia technologies.

It was impossible to tell if it went exactly to plan, as there was so much to register going on at the same time. A blend of disciplined organisation, made many components of the event appear more spontaneous than they actually were. The Olympic flame was delivered by honoured Olympian athletes and handed over to seven up and coming youngsters for the lighting of the Olympic cauldron in the stadium where it will burn for the length of the games.

The spectacle of so many people of all ages working well together to proclaim good will and welcome to the world was in its own right an inspiring message about our kind of patriotism. I was amused to hear on this morning's news some reactionary politician denounce the ceremony as unworthy because it was full of lefty multi-culturalism. Tell that to the Queen, I thought to myself - so many of the themes and values of her messages over the past sixty years as head of state were embodied in the celebration we saw.

It's been pleasing to hear positive media reactions to the opening ceremony from around the world, even if some found it all a little bewildering, requiring  more attention than usual to de-code. I suspect that Danny Boyle's production, although unique and unrepeatable will be re-visited many times once it is out there for viewing on video, and provide a lot more food for thought about what we value most.

Needless to say, much of the rest of the day has been spent languishing in front of the TV, channel hopping from one broadcast Olympic sport to another, out of curiosity as much as anything, but finally driven to switch off by too much commentators' repetitious drivel. If only there was an option to turn off the word-noise, but not the sound effects!
  

Alcala al Xivert

We drove down to Alcossebre this morning, so that I could show Clare the town, and visit the Al Camino drop-in centre. Unfortunately the church was closed, so I can only show her the photographs I took of the interior, as she'll be returning home before my next visit to take a Sunday service. We chatted with visitors, ate cake and drank tea, and then went for a walk along the promenade. I was amazed how crowded the beach was, compared to a month ago - but then this is the peak holiday season time, after all. 

It struck me for the first time that while lots of people go into the water, and play about it in, few people do much in the way of serious swimming. The few who do, go a good way off shore. All along this coast, even when there isn't much wind, strong waves come ashore. Rarely do they seem adequate for surfing. Beach levels in the shallows can drop unevenly, whether there are pebbles or sand underfoot, so maintaining a good swimming stroke against the waves is demanding. So, people just stand in the water and enjoy being buffeted about. I guess it also explains why so many residences have swimming pools.

On our drive home we called into the town of Alcala al Xivert, which sits beside the N340 about 10km inland. The place seemed quite deserted. There is a huge mediaeval church with a very grand bell tower, and it is so hemmed by four storey houses on all sides, that getting a close-up photograph to do it justice was well nigh impossible. 

From an historical information panel on Alcossebre sea front, we learned that Alcala al Xivert had been the main local centre of economic and political significance in the middle ages. It sits in a wide valley which still contains the main arteries of communication north to south. Between Alcossebre and Peñíscola there is no road. Mountains run down into the sea, and nowadays this area is a Parque Natural. 

Down the centuries it appears Alcossebre's population ebbed and flowed. It didn't develop as a fishing port, or as a place of trading by sea, although it was used as a place of refuge by fisherman, as it was easy and safe to come ashore along its beach and find shelter. I couldn't see any sign of an ancient river out-flow, that could have been used in the past for transport to and from the interior. This lack would inhibit its potential for economic development, and population stability over centuries. Now we live in an era of high mobility, and a leisure economy developed around large numbers of people coming and going. Alcossebre bustles with holiday makers, seasonal workers and its all year round community of retired residents. With its mediaeval glory days long past, Alcala al Xivert seems now to be no more than a sleepy little town you slip past on the highway in just a few minutes.