Hot, sunny and calm the lady said and so began Sabaddo.
Shirt, jeans and sandals for the trip to town for Telegraph, pastellerina and
back. Alas, the pastry couldn’t get past the cafe con leche panna cotta. 21 at
1026 the Farmacia sign flashed. 22 at 1038. Back, shorts, coffee and beach. In
than order.
Well, two out of three ain’t bad, or so said Meatloaf.
Taking coffee on the balcony was a delight until the first finger of cloud
preceded by the merest zephyr questioning the shorts. 1130 and the finger
became the arm and shortly thereafter
the whole body. Dark high cloud to the north, south and west, the merest sliver
of brightness was fast disappearing to the west to be replaced by a glimmer of
hope to the west and south.
Jeans and stout shoes by 1300 and a walk south to meet
the merest rays of hope as revealed in that direction. A mile or three south
and a Torre stands on the clifftop, just past the ruined farm house surrounded
by cactus and falling away to the sea in front of it a whole series of stone
walled terraces, now advanced in dilapidation, part fenced off where we think
an underground reservoir is holey opened in a few places. A few metres and
there’s another ruin. Made the more terrible by the vandalism of graffiti, it
seems unable to completely hide the grandeur of a previous life. Ceramic tiles
rendered to shrapnel in the scree about the doorways, window apertures arched
in an Arabian style with striped arrays of brick in the reveals indicate
Moorish influence abundant in these
parts, but how much is history and is it another unfinished project of the very
recent past?
Through it’s brokenness the Torre stands proudly aloof,
just far enough away to deter all but the most fit of the spray can brigade,
one had managed to get that far and they left the date 20/12/13 to add to their
portfolio. The Torre stands on a
headland, as they all seem to for obvious reasons and I was glad to get there.
Below lies the settlement of Paradis, dominated by a couple of unsympathetic
hotels and a motorhome park. If I’d never had regrets about not having been
able to give motorhoming a go I’ll never have them now. Set on the shore in a
gravel wasteland, each cordoned off by link fencing, high density parking, washing
lines, dogs and a, frankly, wholly unpleasant ambience. You’d park there if you
had to and you’d have to as everywhere the opportunity arises to park a
motorhome there are signs prohibiting their presence.
Sitting at the cultivated base of the Torre the views
are quite pleasant, especially to the west where sun glances over the tops of
the sierras and the edge of the dark cloud becomes a definite entity. Moving
east as well. Up and down the coast these Torres abound, always in sight of
each other. It was the same when we walked to Torres in Le Baleares. Sitting on
this balcony, pen in hand, I can see two to the north and there’s at least
three visible to the south of the Torre we sat under. Which made me think about
all this need for protection.
I was always told that the Armada was despatched to
conquer England but just maybe, like the lady who lives next door and talks to
me when I’m having breakfast, they felt sorry for us. Words like gris, lliuva,
vente and frio are recognisable as is pais inglaterra. No, I thought, as the
English lady on the radio this morning reported that Somerset was under water
and there were umpteen flood warnings for the south of Her Majesties currently
United Kingdom, maybe the Armada was despatched to bring us hither to winter
sun, blue sea, gentle breezes and so little rain. Or maybe the Spanish invoked
the iniquitous Treaty of Rome slightly prematurely rather than wait till 1986
to freely migrate to our shores because looking around on the net yesterday it
seems that all these Torres were built not as tourist miradors but to keep a
look out for Berbers, a not wholly beneficent tribe from North Africa nor were
they renowned for random acts of kindness.
As I sit here watching a three masted schooner sail
along the azure horizon over a spangly sea I am left thinking that The Berbers
are only a couple of days steaming away. Indeed, since we’ve been here two
trawlers from those parts have availed themselves of the expertise of the yard
down the wharf. They’re either from Morocco or Libya, whoever has a green and
white flag. Maybe history isn’t as straightforward as we think.
And maybe it is irrelevant, we can travel here conveniently
as EC subjects and live comfortably, the Berbers can come here to have their
boats refitted, to sell sunglasses and leather goods in markets and along
seafronts and the Spanish can have as much as they like from EC coffers which
explains why they have such lovely roads, railways, stainless wire by the winch
full on boats with a lot of the highest tech and mountains of gear, desalination
plants, modern hotels, police visible everywhere, manicured seafronts with car
parks underneath the promenade not to mention escalators in the park and rows
of flagpoles carrying EC flags to draw attention to big blue signs thanking
everyone else in the EC for paying for it.
Doesn’t explain the weather, though, and seeing as the
weather now is as it was meant to have been yesterday no one wants to go
anywhere today and no work is being undertaken that doesn’t involve cooking,
eating or drinking.
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