I got to Calahonda and it was closed

Having arrived in Spain from a decidedly chilly snap in the middle of a Canadian winter, I was not expecting to wake up in the middle of my first night there shivering, with teeth chattering, and a desperate urge to pee. It was one of those horrible situations to which people of my great advanced age must become accustomed – and also was one of the great tests which all humans must, on occasion, go through. Namely this: which is worse, the need to pee or the great cold one must face in order to go and do so?

I lay there for a minute or two, trying to pull my arthritic bones together to find any heat-generating parts of my body, wondering whether Covid19 can act this quickly. Surely not, I reasoned. Especially as I had washed my hands. So I reached over and grabbed a spare blanket and threw it on. Within a minute I was warm again – but not warm enough to make the 20 metre sally to the bathroom. So I went back to sleep.

I finally awoke to find sunlight and warmth flooding into the bedroom. I made some coffee and called home. Then I started writing.

I’ve set myself a 4,000 word target every day – not, I hasten to add, 4,000 words of a novel, but 4,000 words in any format. Blips, journal, letters, novel – all of this counts. I am greatly aided in this by the fact that I have no access to the Internet. To get these blips on line, for example, I shall have to pack up my laptop, go on a 10-minute walk to a café in El Zoco, which is the local community gathering point, buy a café con leche, connect to their wifi, and post. Do you see the suffering I go through for you? Do you?

The absence of Internet is, of course, a great boon. I cannot, for example, do The Guardian crossword, or play chess against a computer, or check Facebook or Twitter, or look up the colour of uniform the OrPo were wearing in 1937, or any of the 2,000 other things I find to do in an average day when I am supposed to be working. I mean, some of them are important, like checking my work account to see if any translations or editing jobs have come in. But some of them are just click bait. Most of them are just click bait, if I am honest.

Already, as I write this on the morning of my second full day in Calahonda, I have written more than I had hitherto managed this year. Admittedly, part of the work on the novel was a rewrite of the opening prologue, but I hadn’t been able to do that until yesterday. I am more focused. I am actually wanting to write. Above all, if I think about what I want to do, the options are more limited and all of them are better for me. I can: write, go for a walk, read, make myself something to eat or drink, or write some more.

I have promised to do this trip on a shoestring – and so am not going out to eat in the restaurants around here (at least, not often), and have bought in the staples of a writer’s diet: pasta, rice, couscous, tomatoes, fruit, a roast chicken. I have a hob to cook. A kettle to make coffee. A corkscrew (although I am not actually drinking at the moment). Some books. There is a television, which I have no desire to switch on (were I even remotely capable of working out the FOUR remote controls to make it work). And I, despite the constant, gnawing reminders of the absence of Mrs Ottawacker and Ottawacker Jr, am happy because I have finally a sense of purpose. There is nothing else I should be doing. Above all, there is nothing else I could be doing. So I write.

And go for walks.

This, too, was part of the purpose of my trip. You may remember that I discovered Spain had incredible healing properties for my osteoarthritis. Since I stopped playing soccer, I have been in constant pain, and at the age of 39 had both hips resurfaced (not at the same time, of course). Things have never been good, and it had got to the point where I cannot walk more than a block or two without being in quite severe pain. In May, however, I discovered I could walk endlessly without pain. I went for hours upon hours in the hills of Granada and Seville, leaving the other Ottawackers in my wake. I wanted to see if it was the same in the rainy season – so managed to sell this trip as part of a great experiment.

And the early stages are very promising. Having hobbled from one end of Pearson airport to the other on Tuesday evening, I found I could walk to El Zoco, load up on groceries, and walk them all back without pain. Even better, later in the afternoon, I went for a longer walk.

We’d never been to the other side of the urbanización, so I determined to see if it existed or was part of a great joke told to unsuspecting visitors (like sending an apprentice for a skyhook or a long weight). Well, I am pleased to announce that it does exist. I marched under the bridge and up the steep incline to the other side, wandered along the rows of shops, through the restaurant sector, over to Chambao Beach to see if my friends Fran and Jorge had yet opened for the season (they hadn’t), and then onto the boardwalk along the beach for the walk back.

It was, admittedly, siesta time. But the whole place looked closed. There was a single person on the beach. All of the boats were covered and looked as if they hadn’t been used for a couple of months. The cafes were either closed or doing repairs. It looked shuttered. I like it. I like being where many people are not. There is a lot less of the Anglophone gammonista here at the moment; less of the braying laughter and haughty ‘why can’t they speak English?’ of my erstwhile countrymen. That in itself is a godsend.

I am aware that this is partly because we are ‘out of season’ – it is still quite chilly (definitely sweater weather) and cloudy at times – but I can’t help but wonder if it also has something to do with Brexit (there, that didn’t take long, did it?) and people being less able to afford European travel (even if the actual Brexit issues haven’t quite kicked in yet).

I suppose the Covid19 issue may be preventing many people from traveling too – the risk of being quarantined for some may be a deciding factor. Whatever the reasons, I am quite happy about it. So I finished my walk, noted the pleasing absence of pain (other than stiffness from using muscles not often used), and went back to the apartment to make some coffee and get down to some writing.