The Indiscipline of Purpose.

Yesterday morning, at about this time the cafe downstairs resounded to the rhythmic clank of a lump hammer hitting a cold chisel. Fortunately in these parts the working day begins about the time that I do. However, the cafe was open. I wondered if the wifi had been turned on. It had. Time to update the blog, email Dad, the kids and a few others, maybe see what’s happening in the world.

As the morning passed into the afternoon even the brightness of the day had failed to remove one from the laptop, the other from the iPad. Eventually the rattle of the chain and padlock was a precursor to the cafe being closed and the wifi signal being turned off. Shopping, then. 

We’re looking for a lampshade with a somewhat Mediterranean feel to send home thus far unsuccessfully. A folding beach chair, like the four we have in the shed, to match the one left here so that we can each sit on the beach on chairs. We found the beach chair in the back of a China shop. 

It was my turn to make the tea so gathering ingredients was in order. We “needed” some more don Luciano Reservas 2005 at 1.90€ so we got two. Two Christmases ago my sister showed me how to bung stuff into a frying pan, add some chilli sauce, leave, boil up again and serve so there was this jar at the checkout on offerta, thousands of them in fact, of tomato in oil with other things. I got some bacon and hacked it up, lacerated some chorizo, finely hacked apart an onion, crushed a load of garlic and fried it up. Added some peppers, tomatoes, both chopped up, stewed for a while then poured in the last of the previous evening’s red. A pretty awful one and at almost 3€ an expensive one as well. I was glad to turn off the cooker and suggest that removing oneself from the sunny side of the balcony may be a good idea seeing as slaving over a hot stove mid afternoon was utterly exhausting.

I was agreed with, in a manner of speaking so I then took the camera and shorts before sitting on a safe part of the beach to watch the surf eat away at the sand. All rather serene and beautiful and much, much later than usual. I have to say that an hour or two in mid January sat watching the gentle passage of Mediterranean sea from a beach a few yards from ones domicile in the company of one’s wife and an iPod with a pair of Sennheiser Momentums whilst trying in vain to adequately photograph the scene is hard to beat.

The evening trip to town, aided by the recently repaired escalators, was another extremely pleasant precursor to whatever tea ended up tasting like. Stamps bought and postcards posted, windows looked in and people avoided saw us back on the prom for the dying embers of a most vivid sunset.

Back indoors and the cooker was fired up, flat spaghetti boiled and once done chucked into the pan of stuff, stirred and served in bowls with finely ground parmesan to top it off. With a glass of red I was hugely complimented for my culinary skills and I have to confess that even with a glass of Mahou it wasn’t bad. There was enough too, and half as much again in the fridge. I don’t know but I guess that just because you open a packet of bacon or get a lump of chorizo you don’t have to do it all. It’s easier that way, though.

After dining we opened the Valor with almonds and wondered why after a combined five or six hours on the net that morning we’d not managed to do very much that we’d intended. We had looked at a zillion sites but could remember absolutely nothing worth remembering.

Yesterday was sunny and hot and we were on the net, today it’s shades of very light grey, cool, wet and calm and the cafe’s shut.

Photo 20: Dangerous currents. Must be rips, I suppose.