moratinoslife.blogspot.com
Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo: Hotter than July
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Friday, 17 July 2015. Now it's July. The priest is gone for now, the fields are cut and dried-out. Mornings and dusks are splendid, but the daytime in between is spectacularly hot - I cannot walk across the patio in bare feet without screaming. On the way out of town we heard a big racket, and this little guy came tumbling out of a ruined basement and into the street. I took him home. Paddy calls him Leonard. I call him Inky. He's a pistol of a kitten. We have pilgrims, now and then. Last night, quit...
moratinoslife.blogspot.com
Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo: I Am Honored
http://moratinoslife.blogspot.com/2015/06/i-am-honored.html
Wednesday, 10 June 2015. About 300 of us schmoozed in a moldy grey cloister, sipping white wine. I tittered with George from William and Mary, and Mary from Vancouver. It all was international ooh-la-la. We were in Santiago de Compostela at an international convention of people in charge of pilgrim organizations. (I am not in charge of much of anything, but they let me go anyway, because I know a lot of them. This happens if you stick around a few years.). I looked at George, and he only shrugged. And de...
moratinoslife.blogspot.com
Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo: October 2014
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Saturday, 25 October 2014. Gettin' Down in Party Town. Dear God in Heaven, these people know how to celebrate. Esther y Celestino, back in the day. Celes was one of dozens of local boys who left Palencia to seek work elsewhere during the 1950s and 60s. He found work in a cardboard-box factory in Bilbao, where he met Esther, who grew up on a Masia in Basque country, and who spoke not a word of Castilian Spanish. But love conquers all – four years later, in 1964, the two were wed. Celes and Esther, today.
moratinoslife.blogspot.com
Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo: February 2015
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Sunday, 22 February 2015. The Month of the Pilgrim continues. It is extraordinary. It is exhausting. Every night this month but one we've had at least two people, sometimes the full-capacity six or even seven, but almost always somebody. They walk 31 kilometers to get here. It's another nine kilometers to the next stopping-place. We cannot in good conscience leave people to sleep outdoors. A Korean man left a message on our shopping-list blackboard: "I love here," it says. Because keeping going is gettin...
moratinoslife.blogspot.com
Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo: August 2015
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Friday, 7 August 2015. It's said the some 2,000 years ago, a man walked on the surface of the Sea of Galilee, during a storm bad enough to panic a lot of experienced sailors in boats floating nearby. The sea-walker invited one of the boatmen to step out onto the waves, too. I can do it if you ask me to! The man shouted. So the sea-walker said, "Come on, then! And the guy did it. It was so amazing, so unreal! He was walking without sinking down. no visible means of support! And pilgrims can have an answer...
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Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo: Someone Important
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Friday, 8 May 2015. No one will be offended if I say that Barbara was my favorite cousin. She wasn’t just a cousin to me. She was a role model. Having known Barbara when I was growing up is a major reason I became a successful adult. When I was very small, she was the cool teen-ager with big blonde hair. She took me for thrilling horse rides, hanging on behind her on her big Arab horses. Hers is the only bathroom I ever visited that had an injured swan living in the bathtub. She wasn’t too proud to...
moratinoslife.blogspot.com
Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo: January 2015
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Wednesday, 21 January 2015. Why People Stay Home. The bag is packed, the tickets printed out, money and pills and notebooks all in order. Train to Madrid, plane to Paris. I will see two good old friends, and a lesser-known but very rich museum I’ve been wanting to visit. I will buy India ink and stinky cheese. I will eat oysters and drink wine and (if it’s clear at night) show my godson Nicolas how to use his new telescope to see the seas of the moon. I don’t want to go to Paris. I lost the dogs’ t...
moratinoslife.blogspot.com
Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo: September 2014
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Monday, 29 September 2014. The view from my window: Maison D'Isabe, Arguenos, Haute Garronde, France. I am on holiday. I am living an American Dream, at least a middle-class fantasy. Was this artwork what made them into people? I love Spain, but I must admit to France's cultural hegemony. It is as cultured place as I have ever been, elegant, tasteful, delicious and expensive. Sadly, even its perfect Autumn days are still subject to the passage of time. I love her so much! And so they all are gone now, an...
moratinoslife.blogspot.com
Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo: May 2015
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Saturday, 23 May 2015. This is how things work here. Oliver´s been at our house for a week or so, helping out with pilgrims and housework, as well as helping out at Bruno´s albergue. Ollie´s a camino hospitalero of long experience. The dogs love him, he´s tried and true. I was finishing a manuscript, he was free, and we have a room where he can sleep.Everyone is happy. I realize I have left my handbag, ID, telephone, and cash at Peaceable. (what an idiot! I wake up and chat with two very flash ladies who...
moratinoslife.blogspot.com
Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo: We are rich
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Wednesday, 24 June 2015. Fr Gerard preaches in Spanish in Moratinos Sunday morning. Life is rich, we are rich. The sky is full of sun, the fields full of grain, larks, lizards. Our house is full of pilgrims, builders, wanderers, dust, dogs. It is busy here, busy all over town, busy up and down the camino. Meantime, I round up pilgrims here in Moratinos, and bring them in the car. Pilgrims at Terradillos, waiting for the Mass to begin. And every day I have to study up on another set of scripture passages,...
