Spain

17 Feb

Posted at 14:18h in Landscape, Spain, Walking by

We often walk the Ruta de la Mineria. It runs through the hillsides where, until the 1970s, lead and iron were wrested from the rock. It’s a walk of about 10km, simultaneously scenic and chilling. Setting out from the village, you climb up into Serena, a tiny pueblo aptly named, through an almond grove and, from there the track winds through the hills and valleys that gave up their treasure to men crouching in deep dark holes wielding pickaxes and shovels through long hours of dangerous work. Disused mine workings still dot the landscape, brick and stone crumbling back to...

10 Feb

Posted at 11:34h in Spain, Walking by

Saturday morning. Yin yoga class at the gimnasio in the village. I walk there from the house where we’re staying. It takes about 7 minutes. I leave my private, early-morning world of gradual consciousness, barely-remembered dreams and scattered thoughts, climb 30 steep steps and cross into the Calle Mar, the narrow road with just enough room for a car and a pedestrian, that runs into the village. And into another world. Past the Ayuntamiento where the mayor, the police and the doctor share a gracious whitewashed building with bands of yellow around the window recesses and Spanish and Andalucian flags fly above the doorway. On...

01 Feb

Posted at 11:35h in Landscape, Spain by

I’m looking at a piece of olive wood. It’s on the table out here on the terrace and may be put on the fire tonight. The sun is warm here by day, but just after 5pm it slips behind the hill on the far side of the barranca. Suddenly it’s cool, the heater has been switched off, the power cut. When evening temperatures dip to single figures and the cool tiled floors inside the house lose their daytime charm, we light a fire. Most houses here have wood-burning stoves for the winter. The fuel of choice is olive; it’s obvious when...

18 Jan

Posted at 16:07h in Spain by

The church in the village has always intrigued me. The bell rings every quarter of an hour and chimes the hour throughout the day, starting at 8 in the morning and falling silent after 9 at night. As far as church activity is concerned, that seems to be it. The church of Santa Maria here in Bedar, with its peachy-beige walls and its terracotta roof, its little tower with the weather vane at a jaunty angle, is simply never open.  One day last year was the only occasion I recall or have heard of. There was a funeral in the village:...