An interesting Sunday – first in St Serf’s in Burntisland for the dedication of a new organ – well, new to them.  Burntisland is one of those places which is moving steadily up in the world.  It’s directly across the Firth of Forth from Leith.  It’s got a seafront and golf links and it’s becoming a commuter town for Edinburgh.  So there should be a new future for our congregations there and in Inverkeithing and Aberdour.  Then it was on to a Confirmation in St Leonard’s Chapel in St Andrews – four students with friends and family in support.

Now I am at [I almost said ‘incarcerated’] at a meeting of the bishops of the churches of the British Isles at Market Bosworth near Nuneaton.  Bishops in bulk are, of course, fascinating characters.  This afternoon’s speaker, Fr Timothy Radcliffe banged a few nails on the head.  This was just one of them: ‘Rush and pressure are part of the innate violence of the world – they destroy the inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.’

All a bit of a performance getting home.  Mr O’Leary says 15 kg and no more these days.  But, of course, I had slipped a bottle of Fr Jack’s comfort into my case.  It was 16 kg on the way over.  But then there was all the toothpaste, shower gel, etc which had been used.  Not to mention the fact that books get lighter as they are read and clothes as they are worn.  So Bamm Bamm – a sensible girl who always operates within the limits – took it back with her to Dublin and on to Belfast.

Like everybody else, I expect, we found the world of holiday and travel simply full of four year old little girls just like Madeleine.  Which was, I suppose, because of heightened awareness.  And yet one wondered whether one could really go up to a complete stranger and say, ‘Forgive me for asking what may seem a difficult question …’   Her parents are utterly impressive.  They remain positive.  But they don’t give the impression that they are unrealistic with it – I am sure that they have stared long and hard into the abyss.

So it’s back to Blogstead Ecosse this evening – provided Mr O’Leary is as good as his word. If not, there will be a problem with the dedication of the new organ in Burntisland tomorrow morning and Confirmation in the Chaplaincy at St Andrews in the evening.

It’s been lovely here – Gilbert asked where. I was being coy about that but it’s in Begur in the really nice bit of the Costa Brava. Meanwhile, as Laurene points out, the Spanish phrase book continues to fascinate. Extraordinary proverbs.

We sat outside at a restaurant by the sea last night and watched the boats in the dusk. In the days when I studied Coastal Navigation for my Yachtmaster Certificate, I used to know the meaning of the sequences of lights which ships display at night. Some are as obscure as the offerings of the phrase book – and sound faintly ecclesiastical – as in: ‘I am a large vessel with limited room for maneouvre in a narrow channel’ or ‘I am a dredger travelling backwards’ or ‘I am under way but not under control.’

I’m not so good at the multilingual stuff. In the camping days on those long treks through France, I would telephone ahead to book a camp site. The problem was not the framing of the question – more understanding the answer. So I would formulate a lengthy question in French such that it could only be answered with ‘Oui’ or ‘Non’. For example: ‘Can I book an emplacement for tomorrow night on a sunny emplacement with a bit of shade convenient to the toilet block but not too close.’

The Lonely Planet Spanish Phrase Book has the opposite problem. It gives the answers but is irritatingly coy about the questions. As in: ‘I’m sorry; it’s against my beliefs’ or ‘I don’t mind watching but I’d rather not join in.’ It also explores the Spanish delight in lengthy and incomprehensible proverbs – as in: ‘to be like the market gardener’s dog who doesn’t eat the cabbages but won’t let his master eat them either.’

We’ve been coming here off and on for a long time – several trips when the children were small bringing the tent and a mountain of gear. We think the last of those camping trips here was in 1991.

We drove here – travelling overnight. No low cost airlines so the autoroutes were full of long distance coaches from England. No internet. No mobile phones. No money out of the ATM – had to take eurocheques to a bank. No Euros – so we couldn’t use the same currency in Spain and Donegal.

Stone Age indeed.

Just time for another update from the Barney Rubble suite here at Blogstead Espagna. Life slips into an easy stone age rhythm – Betty and Bamm Bamm had a run in the shops this morning and we tested out the coffee in the square. Otherwise it is a snooze by the pool and the books. Maybe some rock music in the background ..

I’ve been reading Alistair Cooke’s book on his travels through America just as it entered WW2. I had never thought about the parallel between the shock of the destruction of the fleet at Pearl Harbour in 1941 and that of 9/11. Same feelings of innocence lost and invincibility punctured. But there was one crucial difference. Cooke describes the frail and crippled figure of Roosevelt being helped into the House of Representatives as ‘the unexpected and dramatic revelation … of what a man can suffer and what he can grow to by reason of it.’ Compare that to the sight of President Bush walking from his shoulders – strutting weakness posing as strength – and faith somehow caught up in it and debased by it. I feel the shame of it.

They say that travel broadens the mind. And that’s certainly true here at Blogstead Espagna. There are five bedrooms and four bathrooms. You might expect them to be called after the great figures of Spanish history, art and culture. But no – we’re not in the Dali room but the Barney Rubble suite.

Here I have to share with you another of my keys to travel. Regular readers will know that I regard a haircut as one of the fast ways into the culture of a new place – as when a camp Cape-coloured hairdresser in Cape Town took an hour to cut my few hairs and finished with a light dusting of talc to give the top of my head a matt finish.

Showers are another way in. I remember thinking on my first visit to the USA that I was going to have to remain unwashed – until I found that you had to pull the dinky little lever towards you. And then there was the ‘Is that a tarantula in the shower’ episode in Pacific Palisades.

So the shower in the Barney Rubble suite does it for me. No so much a ‘walk in’ as a kind of journey round and towards the centre of the earth. Turn the tap clockwise and you get a conventional and warming shower. But turn it anti-clockwise and you enter a kind of looking-glass world where jets cunningly inserted into the walls promise all kinds of experiences both intimate and communal. I’m a man of the world. I can cope with that. And yet, I have to say that the angle at which some the jets are pointed stretches even my imagination …

We’re watching the news – or lack of news – from Portugal. I find myself completely full of admiration for Gerry and Kate McCann. They bring to bear a whole range of resources spiritual and emotional – they are rational, balanced, hopeful and spiritually rooted. They have an extraordinary support network of extended family and friends. Chasms of despair and hopelessness beckon invitingly all around them – a crisis with a child is a huge stress in a marriage. But they are doing a wonderful job of remaining focused on the matter in hand – which is keeping the search for their daughter in the world headlines.

So here we are in a rather magnificent villa – the kindness of friends.  I’ll have to give you a conducted tour as time goes on – but we keep finding new bits of it.  There also seems to be a group of flamenco dancers living beside the pool – keep waking me up as I doze in the sun lounger.  I haven’t found the piano yet – Blogstead Na Mara has one.  But I’m sure it’s here somewhere.  We are glad the travel arrangements worked well – three of us here and we came on flights from three different airports.  Don’t ask why – seemed sensible at the time. 

Person parked beside me after the meeting today remarked on the rain and said – as he climbed into a rather svelte motor, ‘If I had known it was going to rain today, I wouldn’t have brought this car.’  Amazing, I thought, as I got into the Passat – now 144000 miles faithful.  I delivered Poppy for a two week stay in the cappuchino belt of Bruntsfield this evening and stopped off at the Asda car wash in Dunfermline on my way home.  One has to keep one’s end up in smart company.