My week in the Extramadura, in Pareles Del Puerto, was fantastic. There was a simple and beautiful routine to everyday.
Before dawn breakfast or porridle miexed with the preserved figs of last year, biscuits broken into it, coffee brewed like gypsys, grains stirred in a pot. And all in the low light of the gas stove and the pilot light, and the street level window. Ride to work, smell of Jara and pine, and the fresh morning. Working between the paws of the Sierra Gata, plowing the rows of peppers and tomatoes with a wheeled hoe, or irrigating the land with a network of ditches and a stream. And when the heat rose, at about ten, cooling out feet in that same river
And the work is good, as William Morris might define it, with the hope of rest, the hope of useful produce, and the joy of feeling your body in use, the ache of muscles, or driving a stake into soft ground.
Take a fresh lettuce, the gardens “lobster” according to Paco, before cycling back, slower than we came, to a noisy lunch. Salad of oranges, onion lettuce and olive oil from the groves not too far away. Mop the dishes with bread.
Its a bustling meal of passing plates and water, Ismael, the ten year olds, rambling, and Pau, five, who resists the healthy parts of his meal.
The kids run off to play, and I talk with Blanca, over a strong coffee, and fight the urge to sleep. And sometimes I give in, and lie in the bed, or we go to the river. And then sometimes I go on a bike ride to a hilltop village. Other days, we bounce the football off the narrow street walls, or draw the old people who sit in rows, watching the swifts swoop around. And then dinner, and soon after bed. Though sleep doesn’t come easily, for the lingering heat, and Paus non sensical singing in the next room. But when I do, it is deep and satisfied.
And so it was for a week, with only slight variations in the choice of rivers we swam in, the plants we tended, and the food we devoured. And it was good, and simple.
Useful work not Useless toil.
I make a series of postcards as a gift for Paco and Blanca, and do some designs inspired by Mucha on the flavors of red wine, for wineskins.
When I leave I am ladened with bread and cheese, home made soap, and fig preserve. and I am given invitation to come again in october to harvest the olives. Its very tempting.
