Love stories
There are many things to love about Spain, too many to mention really. The food and the wine and the weather are a nearly perfect combination.
But we are following a path far from the crushed tourist sights and queues for museums. We have passed through a couple of beautiful cities, San Sebastián is astonishing, beautiful with a hypnotically beautiful beach. We are too grubby and tired for the bars and restaurants and too antsy for the glazed monument gazing of regular tourists. So we walk in and out of the cities fairly quickly.
The life here is a life with a different pace from the one we are used to and it takes a bit to adjust. In the small hamlets and villages and little provincial towns that we are frequenting, life follows a pattern that we could learn from in New Zealand.
The days start later, the mornings are short and busy and then after protracted eating extravaganzas at lunchtime, the days meander slowly down to the dead hours in the afternoon when the only things moving on the streets are the mad dogs, Englishmen and the crazy endlessly walking pilgrims.
And then in late afternoon everything changes.
The empty streets and silent houses spill the whole population out onto the street, into the plaza. Kids are everywhere, prams, bikes and squealing.
And then in this early evening the old people are also out in the plaza or in the cafes. They are dressed up for the occasion, with lipstick and hairspray getting a jolly good work out.
They meet their friends and family, drink coffee or gin, eat cake and pass the time of day with each other. They also seem to spend ages mucking round with their phones and showing each other things on their phones - I’m assuming it’s the grandchildren. Never let a chance go by!
But we also see all the old people in wheelchairs and with walking frames and with sticks and with limps and with oxygen tubes connected to their noses. And people with ticks, and jerks and weird looks.
Everyone is out, sharing the time together. And nobody seems to mind. Daughters push their mothers in wheelchairs and sons walk slowly with their old fathers. It is a beautiful thing to watch.
My mother had a stroke at the age of 69 and lived a further 14 years. She never recovered her ability to speak and so her life was very difficult and restricted . My siblings and I each did what we were able to, but the truth is, my mother spent most of those 14 years isolated from the rest of society. She was cared for but she was never really part of “normal life”again.
We like to keep our disabilities out of sight. In Spain, they are in full view and I salute that.
Lesley
