427: Is life preordained?

Sometimes, more and more often as I get older, I wonder if life has already been mapped out for each of us, as if each of us has our own jigsaw of life and the individual pieces of the jigsaw fit into that larger picture as and when the time is right for them to fit in.

Sometimes I feel that I'm in the driving seat of the entity that is Des but perhaps the route I'm taking has already been mapped out. Even if I occasionally turn off from that pre-planned route I always seem to end up back on it, going in the right direction. 

Russians have a phrase for it, от судьбы не уйти, which means you can't get away from fate. It may indeed be fate, or perhaps God himself is steering us individually in the right direction. Whichever view you subscribe to, and I confess I'm leaning more towards the latter these days, it could well explain why I'm sitting typing this blog at 6 o'clock on a Sunday morning in a 2* hotel in Tortosa in Spain.

I've mentioned before, on social media, that I quite fancy walking the Camino de Santiago. There are several different routes and I had been considering what is known as 'the English route' from Ferrol down to Santiago de Compostela, a route of perhaps 120km. I've had a bit of time on my hands this week and have started to think about going to Ferrol, on Spain's NW coast to recce the start point (time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted!). It's easy to forget that Spain is a big country. Salou to Ferrol is a distance of more than 1,000 km: 9 hours by car, 13 hours by train, or less than 2 hours (but more than £100) by plane from Barcelona to A Coruna.

Why it popped into my head I shall never know but suddenly I thought about visiting Tortosa. One hour on the train from Salou at a cost of just over 4 Euros with my 'senior rail card', and 30 Euros for B&B for 1 night. It's only a single room with no room to bring in a cat, never mind swing it, but the bed is larger than a standard single and the room is perfectly adequate. I shall see later what they mean when they say a 'buffet breakfast' is included. I shall also discover whether the 7 a.m. start time uses the rather more flexible Spanish clock.

Allow me to, finally, get to the point of the blog. I arrived here yesterday afternoon and started looking on the internet for things to do. I stumbled across a site called wanderlust and there found reference to the Vies Verdes, (or green routes) disused railway lines that have been converted into scenic (and largely flat) walking and cycling trails. "The Baix Ebre Greenway, a 26km section of the old Val del Zafán railway, is particularly enticing. From the former station of El Pinell de Brai, the route runs via red-rock ravines, limestone caves, orange-blossom meadows, impressive viaducts and tunnels, and the Ebro River to reach the historic city of Tortosa". 

 All that remains for me to do today is visit the bus station and see if there is a bus to the far end of the route - I don't particularly want to do 26km to then turn around and do 26km back again! Having completed my recce, I plan to return another time.

Tortosa is a lovely town, if only it didn't suffer from that particularly Spanish malaise of not opening its restaurants for dinner until 8pm. I can't change their culture but I can choose to put my money into the pockets of Indians, or in this case Pakistanis, who have the required entrepreneurial skills to open their eating establishments at a more reasonable, for me at least, time. And a nice kebab it was too! 

P.S. Breakfast was fine, but I get quite grumpy when I see people sneaking stuff out for their lunch - to me that suggests the hotel will need to raise its prices to cover its costs so I'll have to pay more next time. 

426: One good turn deserves another....

2 blogs in a week, I have surpassed myself. I'm still dreaming of pushing through to 500 and then (self-)publishing a book for the grandchildren's coffee tables once I'm long gone. I shall always regret not asking more questions of my grandparents, especially those on my mum's side, as I know grandad served in India and nan was there with him, at least for some of the time. Here is a picture of the ship nan came back on. One of my cousins did the research and I saw nan's name on the passenger manifest. Must have been fascinating times.

On my way North to Scotland in a couple of weeks I will be stopping off at Stockport for lunch with the surviving aunt and uncle on dad's side of the family. I must quiz them. Again.

I digress, I'm quite good at that!

I've mentioned before that I enjoy the beautiful walk from Salou to Cambrils. I usually walk one way and take public transport back. This time though, the one remaining little grey cell kicked in and I realized it would be better to walk 'halfway' there and then walk back again, thus gaining the benefit of the sun on my front and my back rather than just one or the other. Hundreds of other people on the path, of many nationalities, either walking, running, cycling or whizzing along on skates. There was a small police presence (I mean small in number, not in size!), which doubtless did a lot to deter the usual throng of Africans from selling their wares (or maybe even somebody else's wares!) from blankets on the pavement.

One thing I did see were these artistic 'sand castles'. I don't have an ounce of artistic talent in me - it's the other UK Des Buckley who has all the talent. 

Why is this blog entitled "one good turn deserves another"? 

On my way off to do the walk I popped into the local barber's shop for a quick No. 2. Who should be the barber but a guy from Morocco that had been coming to my free English classes. A small world.

He gave me the haircut for free, instead of the usual 8 Euros. I was well pleased!

A video clip to finish? I heard Simon & Garfunkel singing "The Sound of Silence" this morning. It has to be one of my all time favourites and I have enjoyed listening to it since it first came out in the sixties. Hello darkness, my old friend...

Now is it dinner time? 

425: A two-year anniversary

Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote (it was the middle of February!). Let me assure my loyal reader that I'm still alive and kicking. Actually, I'm alive and sweating at the moment - just back from a run/walk along the promenade. Possibly a mistake to do it in the hottest part of the day but when did I ever listen to sound advice?

Two years ago today (30th June 2017) I landed in Barcelona to turn the page on this latest chapter of my life. You can't believe how much nicer to have my own little flat than to be paying rent every month to landlords/landladies as I was doing in Moscow & Warsaw. There the pressure was on to make enough money to pay the rent. Now I don't need to work as hard as there is no rent to pay. There is, of course, a management charge to the property administrators and a yearly tax to the Spanish government but they're not to the same scale as the rent was. I still like to teach though as I enjoy the buzz you get at the end of a successful lesson.
So how do I spend my days when I'm not teaching? I always try to take bite-sized chunks every day from three of my 'elephant tasks' (tasks, not tusks) and a then a couple of easy-win  'taskettes'. What are my elephant tasks? Learning Spanish, keeping fit, and some kind of I.T. - all with the aim of keeping body and mind active.
Learning Spanish. Not easy, at my time of life, to be learning a new foreign language. It seems to me that the reason we have two ears is that whenever a new Spanish word goes in one ear a Russian one drops out of the other. I recently paid for a self-study course and having paid good money for it I am now motivated to keep going.
Keeping fit.In the Summer I like to run/walk along the promenade or go to the local municipal gym. I try for, and usually achieve, a minimum of 6,000 steps on my super-duper Samsung smart watch but I also try not to be paranoid about it.
I.T. Just started to design and populate a new Microsoft Access database to help with the Spanish; a container, if you like, for vocabulary and grammar rules and exceptions. From time to time I also undertake webmaster-type maintenance on my website www.inter-bridge.biz
It's been my experience that once you start talking programming 'stuff' to non-programming people they quickly lose all interest. So it's probably best to stop before you're bored rigid.
Can't finish though without including, for posterity, the picture of me and Mo at a Fathers and Daughters dinner at the RAF Club in Picadilly the Monday before last.

 
Apropos of nothing, except that I like the music, here are 2 video clips of Peter Sarstedt singing. 'Frozen Orange Juice' and 'Where do you go to my lovely', both, I think from the 60s - the Golden age of music?

424: Grüß Gott

The first thing to remember when travelling to Munich, or indeed anywhere in Bavaria, is that they don't much say Guten Morgen (Good morning) or Guten Tag (good day)  but instead use Grüß Gott (God's greetings). I flew to Munich (or München as it is called in Germany) on Friday. As you've no doubt gathered by now I pretty much love travelling

especially to Germany, where they have some of my favourite 'fast food' . Not forgetting German beer, of course.

I had an ulterior motive for going to Germany this time - I went to see an Andre Rieu concert in the Olympia Halle in Munich. I guess you either like this type of 'light classical' music or you don't. He tours all over the world with his Johann Strauss orchestra. It was the third time I've seen him live, once in UK, once in Poland and now in Munich. Here are two pictures of the concert venue. I'm perhaps the only person left in the world who won't take pictures of the group/act/turn while they are on stage performing so I took these pictures as the stadium was filling up and then turned my phone off.

On thing I had forgotten is that Bavaria, in February, usually means snow. This time was no exception but it was mostly on the fields, there was almost none on the streets of the city.

As well as going to the concert I took the opportunity to re-acquaint myself with what is, perhaps, Munich's most famous tourist attraction - the rathaus glockenspiel. Three times a day, at 11:00, 12:00 and 5:00 (in the summer), the 32 life-sized figures start to move and the bells chime. It is a re-enactment of 2 stories from the 16th century and you can read more about it here.

I also took a few pictures of the tourist 'tat' available to buy in the shops. Or it would be available if it weren't Sunday. German shops don't bother opening on Sundays. In fact they only open on Saturday afternoons on the first Saturday of the month. 


My video clip, to finish, has to be an excerpt from an Andre Rieu concert. This particular clip has a pantomime bull chasing a woman dressed in red all around the concert hall. Cheap laughs but people of a certain age lap it up.

423: Marseille

I gave myself the weekend off and went to Marseille for a couple of days. I flew from Barcelona on Friday (the flight was just over one hour) and came back by flix bus yesterday (which took 7 hours!). I found it to be a bustling city, especially on Saturday evening, when the streets were full of people. I was told it was a 'manifestation', but of what I don't know. There are several different shades of meaning to that word when translated into English, ranging from event to demonstration to march. There were scores of police vehicles on the street racing hither and thither with their 'blues and twos' almost deafening the eardrums. I even saw little gatherings of riot police ready to do their kettling or whatever French riot police do to contain situations. It may well have been a continuation of the 'yellow vest' protest movement that has such a hold in France at the moment. On Sunday I saw a smaller demonstration, all men, with their banners shouting for the release of Abdullah Öcalan, a Kurdish leader. Apart from all that 'excitement' I had an enjoyable few days in the city. I managed to work out how to release an electric scooter from its electronic 'padlock' (by logging onto their website and paying 'pennies') and enjoyed a whizz along the harbour esplanade, darting between the myriad of tourists who were out and about even this early in the year. Time to let the pictures speak louder than words.

Linguistically my brain became fried and several times I found myself saying Gracias in France and Merci in Spain.   

	I couldn't not have a picture of them selling fish on the harbour
	This is the 'grand escalier' up to the train/bus station.
	sleeping it off.

 And now, a link to the 1971 film "The French Connection", filmed largely on location in Marseille.It is the full-length film so may not be available for long before it is removed.

422: Merry Xmas to friends and rellies, especially those who have been affected by THE BIG C

     I understand that HM The Queen, and her entourage, decamps to Sandringham for Christmas every year. It appears to be my lot in life to spend every Christmas and New Year here in Golspie, in the North of Scotland. At the beginning of the last century Golspie was a thriving fishing village, but fishing, on that scale, died out more than a century ago. As it has in most places around the UK. Overfishing, and the subsequent imposition of quotas, has all but killed off our once vibrant fishing industry. 

     Golspie's chief claims to fame now are Dunrobin castle, the seat of the Dukes of Sutherland, and the monument to the 1st Duke, situated on top of a local hill - Ben Bhraggie.  Many people want to pull the monument down, because of the part the 1st Duke played in the infamous Highland Clearances. My own view is that it helps to bring tourists, and much needed cash, to this part of North East Scotland. 

     This morning I decided to undertake the walk to the monument and back. I must have walked up that hill 50 or more times over the years and am always surprised how it moves further away and higher up every year. It couldn't possibly be because I'm getting older. I would say I met a dozen or more people on the way up or the way down. It is an excellent way to counteract the excesses of Christmas Day.

     Because it's Christmas, and I'm feeling magnanimous, I have decided to sponsor myself for the walk up the hill and back. £1 per minute to Cancer Research on the way up and £1 per minute to Guide Dogs for the Blind on the way down. If you too are feeling charitable then please feel free to add to my donations by clicking on this link.

     So many of my friends and relatives have been targetted by cancer this year. The frightful, and frightening, disease seems to attack people at random. I pray that they will find a cure soon and that my friends and relatives who have suffered, and those still suffering, will be free of it for good soon. That's a bit selfish - actually I pray for everybody who has been affected by this horrible insidious disease. 

     Christmas is almost over for another year in Great Britain and Western Europe. For my friends in Russia it was an ordinary working day. There everybody is gearing up for the festivities that will commence on New Years Eve and continue for 7 or 8 days. I say to them:  c наступающим новым годом! and to my friends in Spain: Feliz año nuevo.

     To finish, that timeless classic from Raymond Briggs' The Snowman.

421: Life's a beach and then you die

     Sorry not to write so many blogs these days. They really must take 4th place behind trying to maintain a minimum level of fitness, trying to improve my Spanish by progressing from Basic to Intermediate, and preparing for English lessons. The trying to keep a level of fitness moves up and down the to-do list depending on what the scales report in the morning. They reported bad news this morning so I'm just back in from a run/walk along the beach. Salou is a bit like a ghost town now most of the tourists have gone home and it's lovely running along the sand listening to the waves of the Mediterranean gently lapping onto the beach. This is the life.
     I try not to have too many chocolate 'goodies' in the flat so as not to be tempted, but returning from a run, with the endorphins whizzing around, there is almost always a craving for some food. This morning was no exception. All I could find, that wasn't a 'proper' meal, was a foosty old carrot. Better than nothing at all, but only just. 
     It's been a busy old week. Last Saturday I went to Tarragona, 25 minutes on the bus, and met my Russian friends Sasha and Natalia who had travelled South from Barcelona to meet me. We had a very nice lunch in El Corte Ingles and then went off to view the old Roman ruins and amphitheatre.
      On Sunday, after church, I took the train to Cambrils and walked back to Salou. A beautiful walk along the coast. And with it being Sunday, there were no immigrants hawking their wares on the no-man's land between Cambrils and Salou forcing pedestrians onto the cycle path by filling the available pavement with trainers, sunglasses, football shirts, hats etc.
   Two encounters with Spanish bureaucracy this week. On Monday I visited a police station in Tarragona to register my presence in Salou. In the 'unlikely' event of Brexit going '****-up' I wanted to increase my chances of not being evicted from Spain. I took every piece of paperwork I had ever owned, just in case they might ask for it. In the event the 'interview' went quite well. Apart from the 'tasa'. They almost finish the paperwork and then send you off to find a bank to pay 12 Euros 'tax'. Why you can't pay it on the spot eludes me. You return, post-haste, waving a receipted piece of paper, and they hand you your registration card. The next brush with bureaucracy was at the offices of the INSS (Spanish Social Security) in Reus. Of course, I had taken the wrong form but they gave me the right one and kindly allowed me to fill it in at the desk rather than sending me away to book another appointment for another day. I left there with a stamped piece of paper in my sweaty little mitt and a promise that they would send me something through the post. Whether that will be a Social Security number or a medical entitlement card remains to be seen.
     And now it's time to make some soup for lunch - with the rest of the foosty carrots.
      And finally, talking about carrots....