Un poco de leña

A bit of firewood. 

Today I made the best of my plans being turned upside down by the train strike. I decided to enjoy what Almuñecar has to offer. So the day started with the Thursday walk, the meeting point being conveniently five minutes' walk from home. We walked along the coast and up a steep hill for a fine view of the Marina del Este. Then we should have carried on along the ridge to come back down through Cotobro. But there were some surveyors surveying the road, and they flatly refused to let us pass: no amount of persuasion, even by the Spanish member of our party, sufficed. So we had to return the way we came; the path is steep, narrow and slippery, so it was a bit dicey, but no-one broke anything or fell off the cliff edge, so it was fine. Stats: 5.7 km, 190 m climbing, two hours. That left time for a coffee before setting off to walk a further couple of km to Spanish class.

From there we walked home, stopping at a favourite tapas bar  on the way. Two drinks each provided enough copious free tapas to constitute lunch, for a total of 10 euros for the two of us. It's such a bargain!

As if I hadn't had enough exercise, we walked home and then went straight out again in the car to collect a bootload of firewood. The photo shows about half of Marcos's stock. Lugging it from car to garden didn't take too long, but we needed tea and a shower afterwards.

In the evening I had another walk into town for a concert by local pianist Pablo Ruiz at the Casa de la Cultura. I was supposed to meet C there, but there was such a massive crowd that I failed to find her, then realised I'd left my phone at home so couldn't WhatsApp her. However I met F and T on the way in, so we sat together ... they were startled to see me as I'd turned down an invitation this weekend due to being in France. 

The concert was enjoyable ... very well known works by Mozart and Chopin in the first half, and mostly Spanish music in the second half, with some flashy Prokofiev to finish. Distractingly, there was a large screen at the back of the stage displaying a greatly magnified view of the keyboard. Never seen this before and wasn't keen on the idea, as it seems to imply it's all about keyboard technique. I kept trying not to look at it, but it was hard.

Afterwards we still failed to find C in the crowd, and none of us had our phones, so we went to a nearby bar for a drink. Home by midnight; a lovely and varied day.