Viral Spain 24^th February, 2022.

Beautiful brown eyes, gazes exchanged, seconds pass, maybe a minute; It is Bio- dance night again! I arrived feeling a bit out of sorts, so much so that ten minutes into the dancing I was wondering about going home. Somehow this morphed into feeling wonderful, loved, loving and deeply content. I wish I could remember the dance that did it, or the partner. By the end of the session I had a sense of being in an altered state and was trying to think of words to describe it. None came.

So, yes I did enjoy Bio-dance last night. There were 29 of us, the biggest group ever. In fact it was the largest I have encountered of any sort of group in Orgiva in my 22 years here. Bio-dance appears to be taking off! I do not understand why this is happening now when previously such groups have staggered on with barely enough members.

Anyway I shall not I suppose find the answer, but I will enjoy. Last night it was a lovely escape from sadness about the situation in the Ukraine. Now I read eight people have already died in shelling. Can you imagine the feeling of being shelled in your home city as you try to get last minute supplies in or look for a safe place to be. I also note the views of people on the street in Moscow saying there has got to be a better way, and feeling ashamed of their country.

I am guessing this is not about any of the things that Putin says it is about. Most of them, according to a BBC fact check turn out not to be true anyway. No, I think this is about controlling Ukraine's mineral and other resources which are considerable. What do you think?

As I have been writing this I have been swapping backwards and forwards on the lap top with El Pais in English, The Guardian, and the BBC to keep up to date with this news. I shall stop now. There is a danger I will become preoccupied and increasingly miserable. Maybe I will see if there is a charity I can send to that will help the war victims. This might help me deal with the situation.

For now though I will move on.

At the end of last week we had an interesting three days of speculation and discussion and I cycled up to near Cañar to view a cortijo for sale. Two people very dear to us were interested in a property. We were on tender hooks, will they, won't they? It is a three bedroomed new build with 5000m2 of land for 75,000 euros, a bargain we all thought. Alas in the end they decided it was beyond their means. It does however signal that these dear souls are serious in planning to move to live in this area. That is good news indeed!

Also last week we had a Woofer as we call them here: A helper who works for their board and lodge. I found it took a little while to feel relaxed with her but during her four days we exchanged information on diet (ginger is good, lemon is very good, sugar is out!) and shared some yoga, plus I taught her how to do a ten minute grounding meditation. She even did the sweeping, juicing, sawing and digging we needed.

Since then we have exchanged two messages and I have sent an email. Could this be one of those very rare occasions when a casual visitor becomes a long term contact? We shall see. She is travelling Spain and France in her camper van so could be an interesting correspondent.

By the way my correspondent on his way to Cambodia arrived, missed his internet date but eventually caught up with her. How will it go? He is now being nursed by her as he has a temperature. Covid? More wait and sees.

You will be rushing to your computers next Thursday. 'Til then, enjoy all you can!

 

Viral Spain Blog, 17^th February, 2022.

What do you say after you say hello? It is a familiar question, but what do you say after you say goodbye? Not much, the person is not there, so the ending revolves around in one's head. I left a men's group on Tuesday after three plus years of sharing and connection.

I was no longer alongside with the aims nor some of the methods, and the timing had always been wrong for me. But....it is hard. Sadness and thoughts of missing out predominate. Fortunately there will be a brief leaving ceremony which I suspect will help.

Changes in life can be difficult or can be an adventure. My friend in Australia flies off to Cambodia this week partly to meet some women he has been connecting with via the internet. He may start a new life there. He is seventy!

Now I will begin to think of what new things I will take on. Do I need any? The last two years have been shaped by restrictions and Covid concerns. At last the chance seems to be there. Is that how you see it? Are you opening out your life?

I ventured out to canoe on the sea on Sunday. I had missed several possibilities and finally made it. What a joy it was. Like the big bike I ride I did recently it took a while to relax and enjoy. The sea caves were the key. West of La Herradura are several big enough to enter. The waves make strong crashing and bubbling sounds, there are bright red algae in the sunless corners and I have a sense of being in a slightly dangerous place. I love it.

The sea was almost flat which meant I could explore tiny inlets in the cliffs. Down one I found a beach barely bigger than my canoe and landed. It was magical. I had to keep my head down as the cliff came forward over the pebbles. I could not see beyond the tiny bay and felt totally immersed in this wild place. Inevitably I had a flask of coffee and sat and sipped in a state of delight.

Not a huge experience like the elephant story from last week but we do not need very many of those in a life time.

It feels good though to still be having little adventures at 69 and also to have a growing sense of satisfaction in my life. It is very easy to let my comfort zone contract and hold me back. I have to fight a bit harder to keep my life interesting.

Lately I have been focussing on my relationship with Sarah. What is good about it and what would make it even better? I am amazed to find that just holding that question and doing one or two tiny things ( peeling some mandarins for her, emptying the organic rubbish, a bit of a back rub ) has made an enormous difference to how I feel. I hesitate to say it, but it is rather like being in love all over again.... maybe with a bit more realism!

Okay, no more lovey dovey stuff ....at least not ´til next time! Which brings me to some questions about this blog. A bit like a relationship....what do you like about it and what would make it even better?

Tell me what you think and as usual feel free to comment on any other aspect.

Perhaps I can end with a little advertisement. I am looking to take on one or two people for psychotherapy sessions. Costs are negotiable and we would have one or two free sessions to start to see how it might go. I would also consider internet sessions. Nudge that friend (or yourself! ) who you know needs a bit of help.

So that is it for another week. Enjoy all you can.

 

Viral Spain Blog, 10^th February, 2022.

Have had further thoughts about banking difficulties...and actually it is the conversations on the phone I find difficult, not the logging in etc. And it is down to poor hearing which has happened in my life over decades. So it's a hearing thing not an old age thing!

I was hoping for a big improvement with hearing devices. So far no, I shall persevere.

I am excited and looking forward to the resumption of 'normal life' after being ill. Still waiting, it is taking a long time. It is a good feeling though. Normal life seems pretty good right now.

And warm weather is just around the corner. I love wearing nothing but shorts and teeshirts.....well you know, with the requisite underwear! I find here there is a relatively short period between too cold and too hot but I love it.

We have recently been inundated with voluntary helper applicants.....we still call them WWOOFERS from the original website that was for willing workers on organic farms! Now, 'workaway' and 'helpX' are more about cheap travel and meeting people. In truth the work they do in return for their board has always been of variable quality. Now we only take over 25's and there is some improvement. I remember young people not used to physical work lifting a pick a few inches and tapping the ground with it. We have had some great one's too. Here we do not have as much work as we had at the Cortijo and it is nice to meet and get to know a traveller and share experiences. We have a good cook (at least I hope her claims are true!) coming on Sunday. Her references talk of her doing a sterling job of clearing up after a party as well. We have had 'good cooks' before who made an incredible mess of the kitchen.

Funny thing is, nearly all our Wwoofers turn out to be good looking young women. I assure Sarah it is just down to availability and who had the best request and references. I am not sure she is convinced.

Next week then we will get lots of sweeping up done. I shall have some vegan cooking tips and one or two meals prepared in my slots. There will be a noticeable absence of oranges and olives rolling around the patios. All leaves will be swept up and several annoying stick trees will be for the chop. Do you know the ones I mean? This time of year they are literally tall sticks but they are an invasive species slowly creeping into our garden from the ham store grounds.

I am noticing how there are not always interesting occurrences in my life about which to write in this blog.....so here is a story from my past. My 30^th birthday in fact.

Do you know what a cross elephant looks like? I didn't, but there is no mistaking the sort of swinging thing they do with their trunks. I was travelling alone through India and out for a walk in Corbet wild life park with a Dutch woman. We had seen the park elephants used for tiger spotting rides. Then we saw an elephant ahead on the track. This was unmistakably different; looking at us, not happy. He walked towards us. We kind of shrunk to the ground, holding each other, terrified. A few yards away he left the track and we thought he was gone. Then there was a wrenching sound, undergrowth being torn up by a great force. It was the big guy circling round ! He came back on the track just behind us, gave us a glance then walked on. We watched in silence until he was gone.

Happy adventures.

 

Viral Spain 1^st February 2022.

Do you ever put things in 'safe places' ? I do not recommend it. Twice now I have put my banking details in safe places which I have never been able to find again! This last time I searched and searched. My safe places are too safe.

So now I have been through the rigmarole of setting up my internet banking yet again. I think call centre staff should be selected like the BBC used to select it's news readers, you know, nice clear voices, no beards nor regional accents, Queen's English. It seems to me the opposite policy is adopted with bank call centres. Rumour has it they are often in Asia so that would account for a preponderance of Asian accents! I had my secret weapon, new hearing devices, volume on high, but still I struggled to discern what my particular respondent was saying. My paranoia that I might get the process wrong or fail to record an important number/password/ code and its correct description accurately was not helping. I could tell she was getting a tiny bit impatient.

Maybe they should have 'old buffer' training as well as impeccable speech ? I waited patiently for my new coder and new code number to come in the post. I was told I would have to ring again and quite frankly I was dreading it! I opened the brown envelopes yesterday and found the code had expired on Friday! I will not repeat here what I said then. But....all was not lost, one could get a new code on the website! I went through the necessary steps, slowly and carefully with young, clever and computer literate wife on call. After ten minutes I found myself in on line banking! I was amazed and so relieved. No phone call, new code retrieved, wonderful. (Why do they send a code by post anyway?).

There was even another bonus. Sarah cannot access the savings account for reasons known only to bank people so we had not accessed it for a long time. The balance has grown over covid years, yes it is nearly two years now, and was three times what we were expecting!

So I have put all the papers, coders, numbers etc. away in an unsafe place. And I have put a note on the calendar to check our balances next week before I forget the unsafe place or how to do it.

Amazing I find all this. Only a few months ago I still felt like a young(ish) man. That is actually a huge exaggeration. I don't think I have felt young and competent in the face of internet banking since they invented it.

Anyway, to return to the concept of safe places. Last week, when looking for yet more codes, and user numbers, this time for making international transfers I was examining a very safe place, an old photo album when 350 euros fell out! So another happy ending to a safe place story.

Everything comes to he or she that stands and waits? Some of you will have read on my face book page that we both came down with nasty flu/cold type things ten days ago. And we tested positive for covid. It was miserable. It was not the mild post vaccination malaise we were expecting. I suspect that is just a feature of old covid, shiny new covid hits for six.

So stand back and avoid!

 

Viral Spain Blog 20^th January, 2022.

Moods, emotions, even at 69 they are a bit of a mystery to me. I woke up this morning feeling sad. I even wonder if in western society that is a normal thing to say? I don't think it is. Worse we are not even supposed to feel it. Yet is it not quite a common emotion? No wonder I have not got this emotion business sorted.

There is a tendency in my mind to ask why do I feel this way. I do not know. I do know that there is much to be said for approaching one's emotions with curiosity and compassion. The two together give an easier, kinder, sense of self inquiry than the simple question 'why?'

For me after the two Cs comes acceptance, and then the feelings usually slide away.

I was ill at the weekend, sore throat, head and face ache, very tired. Sarah was going to visit a friend on Sunday and I thought if I have got it I want to start my quarantine sooner rather than later. So we both tested. We were both negative.

By Monday I felt I was well enough to go for an extended cycle ride. I have not made time for this for weeks, so flask, and rudimentary lunch packed, off I peddled. All the way to Lanjaron I thought 'This is a mistake, I have hardly got better, I don't feel like this!' Breakfast in the sun, hot chocolate and buñuelo, simply added a slight queasiness. I persevered and turned towards the Beznar reservoir for a coffee break. I sat down near the fast stream running into the sparkling waters of the lake. A heron took off from nearby. I was suddenly in heaven and so glad I had come.

Now I have to tell you of a realisation from my visit yesterday to the audiologist. We, the hard of hearing are under surveillance. The technician was able to tell me the hours, minutes even and volume of use of my devices for the past week. I was expecting any minute for him to say 'and your wife has very noisy orgasms' !

I assume it is a government plot: the spy in the ear. Audiologists are agents of control. I am fooling him though. I left my devices switched on in the kitchen over night, and at high volume. Maybe 'they' were able to hear the cat snoring and will be wondering why I was up all night.

Anyway the trial continues. Or as I said last night with complete unawareness, I will just have to play it by ear!

Have any of you been watching 'Afterlife' on Netflix? Ricky Gervaise plays a difficult man coming to terms with the death of his much loved wife. It is a comedy but a hugely poignant one.

I have a friend who told me he likes to talk about death every day in order for it to stop being a taboo subject. It seemed like a good idea and so.....

My beloved grandfather died when I was 24. I did not know how to react so I didn't. Perhaps I have mourned him since. A suicide, a murder, and a stroke ended the lives of three dear friends when I was in my 40's. Then the big one, both my parents died within five weeks in 2002. I have not been the same since, it has been a release and a huge sorrow.

Now, approaching 70 I think, as more friends die, this is how it will be. Until it is me. I am continuing to look at how I make the best of my last decade or two. I am continuing to wonder how to cope as friends die. Death is inevitable. Lets talk about it.

Go well.

 

Viral Spain Blog 13^th January, 2022.

Our small electric clock in the kitchen ticks. Who cares? I do. It is the first time I have ever heard it. I have started a trial with hearing aids and it is one of a panoply of sounds I have never heard before. Actually I mustn't lie, it is the only new sound that comes to mind but I love that word panoply.

And I have had the hearing devices for less than 24 hours. In fact now I recall the weird array of sounds I heard in the car driving back from the audiologist yesterday. I hoped there was nothing wrong, there were so many new noises. No warning lights had come on before I got home so I guess it was okay!

What interests me is how different this trial is from the one I had four years ago. Sarah noted I already had the little devils in when I took her tea this morning. I am not so startled by new sounds. Either the devices are better, or better set up, or I have changed. Probably all three, they cost a bit more, the audiologist....well he comes over as less assured than the last one but seems to almost relish my questions so is pretty keen, and me?

I have reluctantly accepted that the time has come. I have got fed up with asking for repeats in conversation, of understanding so little Spanish, or English for that matter when people are wearing masks as I have to see a face to 'hear'. I am aiming to treat it as an adventure in sound and turn them up to full volume now and again to see what I can hear.

'Deaf aids' were what my Grandparents wore when they seemed incredibly old. So I still struggle with letting people know I am getting them. Last night at Bio Dance I had to steal myself to ask the leader if we might have the music at a lower volume due to my new aids. It was worse when I told the group. I saw it as a therapeutic act. No one screamed, ran out of the room, or the real fear (especially with a young and largely female group ) tried to avoid dancing with such an old man, well as far as I could tell.

Writing about them is not so hard. I know most of my readers are old or oldish and kind or kind-ish...well, no mean bastards detected so far! I still find the phrase 'hearing aids' difficult to use...maybe it is too similar to what my grandparents wore. I like hearing devices better, or even, note the link to my new years reso's, ' listening devices'. Perhaps that's a bit extreme.

Which brings me via this very strained link to the extreme 'Cards Against Humanity' game. It gives an idea of the nature of the game and its inventors that the person to start is the person last to have had a crap. For some reason my family just assume and I always start. We played it over new year and is more fun and less controversial than Monopoly but lasts almost as long. There is some controversy but more in the nature of one conclusion we found: 'Most marriages end with....throwing a virgin into a volcano'. It goes down better after a drink or two or even a puff or three as was my New Year's experience!

So it is coffee time here and I will end on a positive note. According to one expert and one very opinionated friend who describes himself as having read across a range of reputable sources, we are at the beginning of the end of the pandemic. The new strains will continue to be less potent. This means a virus survives longer in a host and therefore spreads better and becomes the more prolific strain, taking over from older strains, and eventually becoming more like the flu infections we have long known.

Go well my friends.

 

Viral Spain Blog, 31^st December 2021.

Happy New Year...but before we get on to that, how was your Christmas? We had a very average one. Oliver was a bit quiet then at lunch developed a head ache and headed to his room for the afternoon. (If only we had known!) And of course the very welcome rain meant we did not go out for our usual Christmas walk. We all felt a bit lacking in energy.

The new eco giving regime sort of worked. Some resorted to chain stores but we all managed to avoid Amazon!

The big and totally unexpected news of the week however came three days later when Oliver's preflight Covid test came back positive. We all took a day or two to digest this news, especially Oliver who had a flight to cancel and a new plan to work out. He and Sarah talked through the options yesterday morning and he hopes to get a second test which if clear will mean he can fly back next week. And now we understand why he, and the rest of us were not at our best over the festive season. We cannot blame it all on the competitive spirit and fuel for discord that seems to arise from the Monopoly board!!
We, Isobel Sarah and I are also quarantining and new regs mean this is only for a week. I was sorely tempted to breach mine as the sea conditions forecast is the best I have seen in years and I really wanted to exploit the great weather with a canoe trip today! The risks would be minimal...I don't socialise on the drive, the launch or the trip! However in the end it just did not feel right, and might not to anyone who saw me heading off. A canoe on the car roof is far from inconspicuous.

Maybe this year we should have played secret sickness?

Back to new year considerations, whatever they are. Actually I rather like the idea of new year resolutions having rather disliked them for much of my life. It does feel like a new start and a chance to review life. This feels especially pertinent to me as an older guy. Do other older guys feel the same? Each year feels to me a bit more precious than the last. And while I like to think in terms of at least fifteen more, who knows.

My resolutions for this year revolve around connection with my fellow humans; Listen and respond to what I hear, Touch (one word is all I wrote, but you know what I mean, safe caring touch, no naughty stuff ) and Speak from the heart, ie. with honesty openness and care. So there you have it. They feel a bit daunting, especially now I have revealed them to the world. Okay so aim high Chris, make those years really count!

' How to Blow up a Pipeline ' was one of my Christmas gifts this year. This was from Oliver. Who knew he was an anarchist, or perhaps he thinks that of me. That could make my final decades really count.

I am only half way through but already Andreas Malm is making a good case for direct action. Only empty words, and a few changes, are all that have occurred so far. Many millions are invested in coal and oil. It is obvious that the needed changes will not happen without a drastic new initiative. Anyone want to borrow the book?

I leave you to cogitate over this and to consider your new year. I wish you well.