Sunday 7 November 2010

Leaps and Bounds

Sunday 7th November, 2010
Oh yes! I had my first semi-conversation today, all on my own! And I don’t mean I talked to myself, I’ve always done that no news there; I mean I managed to communicate effectively to my landlord when he came to collect the rent. As I returned from my morning dog walk he (Emilio) was to be found banging at the door. He had apparently been in Málaga for the week, hence only collecting the rent today. He presented me with a bag of avocados and kaki fruit. Not yet ripe, I need to ripen them before I eat them he told me. I understood that too! Then, and this is the marvellous bit, we had a whole conversation about where I go shopping and do I go for meals in the village! I had already told him I really like avocados and are the kaki fruit pomegranates (didn’t have my glasses on). Emilio understood me, and I him. This is a BIG step. No friend to turn to when not sure what was said, I did it all by myself. The evenings spent reading Spanish study books and holding imaginary conversations in my head were not all in vain! Confidence has returned and I may, just may, have a ‘real’ conversation with someone in the village this week. J


My peak. And before you say it is on the same level
I have to walk down before I go up it!
There has been a lot of shooting reverberating around the mountainside and I cannot work out from whence it comes. The walk with the dogs was therefore a little intrepid; one wasn’t sure whether if rounding a bend or appearing above a mound one was going to be in the line of fire. As it was the walk was uneventful, though pleasant as I made my Sunday ascent to the top of the nearest high bit, or ‘my peak’ as I like to call it. The lungs still protest a little but not nearly as much as they did the first week I climbed it. Either I’m getting fitter (despite knee problems) or the wind has blown a chunk off the top of it.






Said wind was again building into a substantial puff and by 1 o’clock the front door was shut and by 1.30 a fire was burning. There is something primeval-ly satisfying about the creation of fire. Forget the extension of teenage years in humans for the development of brain power, the usefulness of opposable thumbs or any other evolutionary theory; the day Prometheus descended from the heavens and gave man the secret of fire, that is when Homo Sapiens arose and took over.
From fire comes life. Nature knows that. So whilst fire may destroy, it also allows rebirth. Acres and acres of mountain forests, scrub and shrub are burnt to ash each year, but slowly from the dark, desecrated earth new shoots push their way through and so begins the next chapter.  Some seeds require the fire to stimulate their growth; and so it was for man. Fire allowed food to be cooked, warmth to be generated and danger to be thwarted. There would have been no Iron or Bronze Ages without the ability to smelt.  There would have been no Roman villas with internal heating systems, no industrial revolution, so Steam Age.  In short, without the gift of fire I would not now be communicating as I do, watching the flames lick around the slowly disintegrating logs.
The yellow flames dance around the logs of olive wood whilst hot orange embers fall into the grey dust like amber jewels. The pop and crackle as the air expands under the bark sends tiny golden sparks heavenwards or to tap against the glass pane of the burner.  Fire may have been a gift from the gods but devils dance within the flames. They leap and swirl around the wood, some horned, some grinning, with eyes of dark smoke.  You can’t help but be drawn to them.
P.S. I would have researched the seeds that need fire to germinate and how different processes requiring fire have improved man’s lifestyle, but as you know I write everything longhand first and I couldn’t drag myself away from the fireside.

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