I felt desperate for space this weekend, to get beyond the four walls of my own home and to breathe deeply in spacious places. We ended up going to three different places over the course of the weekend and, true to form, nature absorbed from us our tension and frustration and in their place offered us peace and energy.
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First we went to the lake at El Chorro, an extended lake formation resulting from the construction of a dam in the 1920s. It's a popular leisure area and, while the camping area remains closed, the places reserved for day-trippers were open and pretty busy. We found a relatively quiet zone, still adjusting to the apparent keenness of the general population to return to business as usual. The fish seem to have benefitted from the lockdown and have gotten big since we were last there. We picnicked and Tim had a quick swim. The rest of us were not so keen to brave the resident fish (I promise you, they were enormous and I was having flashbacks to being nibbled by fish in a dam in South Africa!).
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This morning, Tim and I headed out early with the dogs. We walked from our house onto the hillside, taking a very direct and steep route onto the ridge, before circling around - via a tea spot overlooking the Torremolinos coast - and heading down a stepped and very eroded descent back to the house. We continue to be surprised at how many people seem to have discovered the hills since lockdown, which is a great thing although not quite what we're looking for when out walking.
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This evening, we took the girls to the beach for sundowners, to celebrate Keziah getting one of the very few places for the Betonica course in Medical Herbalism. It was blowing a gale - which we loved because it's quite unusual for our part of the Mediterranean coast.
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Being out in the wind reminded me of a poem I wrote. In it I ask myself the question, what remains steadfast within me when the world around me is in turmoil? It seems an appropriate question for this buffeted season in the world. You can listen to the poem here.
How would you answer this question? What holds firm in you when everything is moving?
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