An Addendum to the Universe.

Cape St Vincent

The trip down the Portuguese coast was calm, until we rounded Cape St Vincent into an easterly breeze. We spent some pleasant days in Portimão and around Olhão, where Fiona rejoined us. Now Anna M is swinging to her mooring in the Guadiana again, an addendum to this amazing universe, responding to the pull of the sun and the moon, with the bright stars shining down on her. Mostly in the day-time the sun shines warm and dry, but a chilly blast of air from the north reminds us that winter is closing in; early snow has come there, and we have dodged the North Atlantic just in time!

One of the Wilos below Sanlucar.

The mooring had a bit of a branch tangled in it, but otherwise is fine. Wilo Paul from Galway, who couldn’t be called Irish Paul because there already is one of those on the river, came aboard for dinner yesterday evening. He is back on his mooring nearby, having come down from Ireland in July, straight from Kinvara to Sagres in two weeks; good going, showing that the old wilo, big lump of steel that she is, can shift very nicely with the right breeze!

So we are soon catching up on the comings and goings of this little community, if one can call it that! Interesting times, especially perhaps for we who have more or less moved on from nationalism, and count ourselves to some degree Europeans. How does it feel for the ones from our neighbouring island up there in the northern mists? I shall be trying to find out with interest, but I don’t imagine it is good. Admittedly there are an awful lot of Brits in Spain, and they are hardly going to be chased out of it; but maybe they will be here more on sufferance rather than by right.

You may say that that is only to the good! Indeed as for the ones who look down on the locals, and don’t even try to learn the basics of their languages, you may have a point. But for those of us who enjoy the interplay of cultures and languages, and see the different tribes of humanity as complementary rather than threatening, it cannot be nice to find oneself suddenly in danger of being regarded as a non-person!

I was lucky enough to get to Mass for All Saints day in Portimão; it was a high, sung Mass, and the singing was beautiful, with the packed congregation joining in with an excellent choir. Rarely did the Communion of Saints seem so close to me; one could really feel the possibility of that mysterious and ecstatic fulfillment of humanity ‘from every nation, race, tribe and language’, as St John put it so long ago.

At least the Catholic Church cannot be accused of hypocrisy in this respect, for in her churches, there they are, all caught up in the same simple yet profound emotions and thoughts. As we contemplate the disintegration of the liberal consensus of recent decades, I believe we shall have no choice but to revisit such little matters as Heaven and Hell, and discover what they really mean for us!

Evening at Alcoutim.