We should have moved on today if we had stayed true to the schedule we'd sketched out a few days ago. However, last night when we did have a whiff of Wifi Gill asked me to Google 'Bolnuevo fiestas'. She was curious as to why ever since we arrived a large fair was being set up on the beach. From there being one somewhat desolate hamburger trailer emblazoned with Bugs Bunny parked next to the fishing boats drawn up on beach - a startling sight - lorry after lorry has arrived carrying bumper cars, waltzers, shooting galleries - the whole fairground shabang.
Gill with impeccable logic put forward the hypothesis that a fair must be associated with some larger community event - that in Spain they do not just happen for no reason, especially in mid November. She was spot on. The local English on-line newspaper - the Calida Chronicle (I jest not) announced in a tone of breathless excitement that one of the highlights of the expat community's year was about to happen in Bolnuevo , the famous and much anticipated 'Sardine Sunday' when food and wine is served on the beach in the afternoon.
Further investigation revealed that this was the culmination of two weeks of local religious and community events commemorating a miracle which saved the towns of Mazarron and Bolnuevo from destruction by Saracen pirates.
The story goes that as the evil pirates approached the shore they were faced by the ghostly figure of the Virgin Mary, at which they took fright and fled.
When the villagers went to give thanks at the local hermitage which contained a statue of the Virgin they found that her robes were wet and she was covered in sand. The lamp that illuminated her sanctuary burned brightly even though it contained no oil. There you have it, a full blown type A off-the- peg miracle including mysterious Marian intercession, terrified heathens and an everlasting lamp.
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| Some fishermen's cottages next to the beach have painted tile panels depicting the miracle. |
Meanwhile, we have a bit of time on our hands, the weather has become overcast and misty. After two months of constant travel where we have moved on after two or thee days we are planning to stay here for six nights. So I'm going to keep a running diary style blog of our time here until the day of Miracles itself, when I'll probably post a separate account with pictures.
Thursday 20th November
A cloudy morning, but still mild. We decided it was a domestic day - window cleaning and floor de-sanding. Then we cycled about four kilometres to the nearest Lidl and Mercadona supermarkets for groceries.
By the time we'd had a relaxed lunch and washed-up the clouds were starting to break and it was feeling quite warm in the sunny intervals. We headed back to the beach where I had been swimming yesterday, carrying our folding beach chairs on the rear pannier racks. Gill settled down to become further engrossed in Tudor intrigue - she's reading Wolf Hall at the moment. I finished the blog post about the journey here from Altea, and vacillated about going for a swim; it was warm in the sun but the breeze was cool. I'm definitely a fair weather swimmer!
As the afternoon wore on the wind dropped, and though there was a small swell and the sea was not crystal clear like yesterday, I decided that I had so few opportunities to swim in the sea at home, this was too good an opportunity to miss.
Soon I was paddling around, perhaps 40 metres from shore, if anything, despite being less sunny than yesterday, the water felt warmer. From this angle the beach was deserted so far as the eye could see, apart from Gill sitting nearby on a lime-green beach chair lost in her book. I swam across to the low promontory at the end on the sandy cove and sat on the rocks for a while just looking at the motion of the wavelets breaking beside me. I was no more than 50 metres from the beach road, but where I was sitting was not overlooked, all I could see were rough rocks above me, the sea stretching to the pale grey horizon and an empty beach - a moment of solitude. I slipped out of my shorts and swam bare-arsed around the cove for five minutes or so. It felt great!
Soon it would be evening, the promenade would become busier as people headed to the nearby 'sunset bar'. I needed to revert to a state of public decency; after a few moves reminiscent of Mr Bean goes to the seaside, I managed to pull my shorts back on while waist deep in the waves, a trick that required unexpected levels of gymnastic effort, performed, thankfully, on an entirely submarine basis.
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| Fifties B Movie horror...The Thing That Came From The Deep..... |
A few minutes later I was sitting next to Gill; I dried off and got properly dressed. I reached into my bag and found an apple and munched it slowly, watching the sunset. I was thinking of how much younger I felt than say two years ago, - wearing a suit and tie everyday, weighed down by corporate responsibility, caught in the middle of a merger, on the losing side. Here I was, a shade off 60, watching the sun set over the Med, dressed in a pair of ragged shorts, a faded Joe Brown tee shirt and ancient sandals, living for the moment, day by day. I thought to myself, enjoy it, life is rarely this good or this simple - Carpe Diem
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